When we pulled into Nirvana Home guesthouse in Namche Bazaar, I was most excited for a hot shower, a latte and some wifi.  But the true gem of our time in Namche was spending time with the presiding grandfather of the guesthouse, the Kancha Sherpa.  Truth be told, we had no concrete plans about places to stay.  We just followed our friend, Pasang Lama, to his old classmate’s place.

At first Kancha Sherpa impressed me because he is the last surviving member of the 1953 Hillary-Norgay summit of Everest.  (Around the Khumbu, you can’t swing a cat without a statue or reference to Sir Edmund Hillary and THE expedition that started it all.) Kancha waited with one other guy on the South Summit, just out of view of the tippy-top, for the two headliners to return.

At 85 years old, he is a bit of a local legend.  We gathered around the dining room’s “chimney” to warm up with some story time from grandfather.  The kids were into it.  This was road schooling at its best: learning from the source something that cannot be taught in a classroom.

Namche Bazaar in 2017.

When Kancha was a child, there were just six houses in Namche and they would all band together, for fear of bears, to walk down to the stream for water.  When asked what other animals were plentiful back then, he said the yeti.  A “yeti” is like a extra-hairy big foot and many people in the Khumbu know someone who has seen one or been attacked by one.  Down in Kathmandu the yeti is more of a mascot – the symbol of airlines and silly tourist T-shirts.  But up high, he’s more real. There is even a yeti scalp you can see at a local monastery (for a fee).

police sketch of a mischief-making yeti

As a young man Kancha Sherpa ran away from home to Darjeeling, India, in search of  work and an adventure.  Once in India, Kancha found his old Khumbu friend Tenzing Norgay, who hooked him up with a temporary job and eventually got him named on the Hillary Expedition.  The expedition walked with their gear from India, across Nepal and up toward Everest Base Camp – nothing like today’s quick flight to Lukla followed by a seven day walk.

His first impression of Hillary was: TALL, very tall.  But mostly, people revere Hillary because he never forgot the Sherpa people and spent the rest of his life as an ambassador of Nepal and, more specifically, the Sherpa ethnic group.  He funded the first school in the area, the hospital, most major building projects and more. (By the way, “Sherpa” refers to an ethnic group, not people who carry bags.  Those people prefer to be called “porters”.)

Lorna with Kancha Sherpa

The girls and I stayed in a triple room up on the third floor of Nirvana and I thought we were the only ones staying up there… until the blowing of the conch shell down the hall on the first morning.  Then there was a drum.  Then there was someone pacing the floor with a mumble.  As I put my ear to the door, it was a low, “om mani padme om.”  I cracked my door to see him shuffle along counting his prayers on his prayer beads.  Over the five nights we stayed there, he did this ritual each morning and each evening.  He walked in a sacred circle around the town each day, praying for the freedom from suffering for all sentient beings.  Kancha showed the kids and I his prayer room, let us try out the drum and admire the letters from the Queen of England and the Nepali dignataries that were pinned to his wall.  Above and below the royal letters were the many photos of his wife, and some of his kids.  His daily routine included special prayers for his wife who passed just two years before.  He prayed for her safety and welcome in the spiritual realm.  He daily changed the water of seventeen bowls as an offering.  He had a tall daily to-do list and it was all truly for others.

Soon, he will spend the cold months with his son in Kathmandu and I wondered that he could still make the walk.  But no, he just tells the helicopter companies that he needs a lift and they get him the next free seat heading down.  His reputation (or all the good karma?) has earned him a VIP frequent flyer status.  Sometimes logistics can be that simple.

One of the posters in the Nirvana Home Guesthouse

Just meeting a human, like Kancha Sherpa with one humble foot in the past and a mind so focused on the spiritual future, I was just as “roadschooled” as my kids.  The elderly here have a purpose – not a token value – but a true purpose.  They have the time and inclination to slow down and pray for us all, to remind us what it is all about from the perspective of age.