MHCC student Pemba Sherpa electrifies home village in Nepal

By Valerie DePan

If you want something done, sometimes you have to do it yourself.

That’s the approach MHCC engineering student Pemba Sherpa, 45, took when it came to bringing electricity to his home village in Khumbu. Khumbu is the main Sherpa settlement of the Himalayas located in northeastern Nepal near Mt. Everest.

To fully appreciate the task of bringing electricity to a third world country such as Nepal, it helps to understand the region, people and culture of Khumbu.

In Khumbu, the elevation ranges from 3,300 meters all the way to the highest point of Mt. Everest at 8,850 meters (29,035 feet), the highest point on Earth.

A shy man, standing five foot three, spotted signs of graying hair, twinkling brown eyes, and dressed in a colorful parka and blue jeans, Sherpa said he was a Mt. Everest guide for 20 years. “I stopped [guiding] after losing many friends,” he said “from all parts of the world.”

According to online Wikipedia, the Sherpa are an ethnic group from the most mountainous region of Nepal, high in the Himalayas. In Tibetan shar means east; pa is a suffix meaning people, hence, the word sharpa or Sherpa. Sherpa is also a designation for guides or porters for mountaineering expeditions located in the Himalayas. Sherpas are prized for their expertise in mountaineering, knowledge of the terrain and endurance due to high altitude living. Sherpas are also known to share the common last name ‘Sherpa.’

“Nepal is a poor country located between India and China,” his wife, Joyce Sherpa, said. “The average annual income for a Sherpa living in Khumbu is $248.” Joyce Sherpa is a MHCC chemistry instructor. The Sherpas speak their own language which resembles a dialect of Tibetan, she said. Overall, Nepal has a population of roughly 28 million, whereas, Khumbu is much less populated, she said. Nepal is the only country in the world where males outlive females, according to online Wikipedia.

The opportunity to bring electricity to his home village began with a search for a humanity credit to round out his degree, Pemba Sherpa said. It turned out to be an INTL 210 four-credit class he took in 2004 that lasted over six months.

In the process, Sherpa rolled up his sleeves and was assisted by dozens of villagers who volunteered to help run over a 1,000 meters of pipeline, sometimes navigating 60 to 85 foot cliffs, and dug ditches two to three feet underground, Sherpa said. Almost everything was done using domestic tools such as using 50 to 60 pound hammers to split rocks, he said.

The micro hydroelectric power plant generates 100 flow watt and serves 130 families and 28 lodges. At first, the village thought they wouldn’t use all that power but they’ve already burned out two generators, Sherpa said.

Sherpa now estimates that due to population growth that the village needs to grow by 10 to 15 percent per year and needs major upgrades every five years. Sherpa’s dream of building a mini hydroelectric facility amassed extensive out-of-pocket expenses, Sherpa said. His payback is the personal satisfaction of bringing electricity to his home village where his mother, father, brother and sisters still live, Sherpa said. “Villagers only pay $5 a month.” Most of the locals who collaborated on the project are agrarians, meaning that they are farmers and the economy is dependent on agriculture, Sherpa said.

The government (historically monarchy is in question), is currently democratic with seven to eight political parties vying for power, according to Sherpa. However, over 15 years ago Sherpa began petitioning the government assistance to bring electricity to the village and after repeated requests, showdowns, and no results -- years later he finally took the matter into his own hands, Sherpa said.

Sherpa says he is also concerned about the deforestation that’s taken place in the region due to its heavy reliance on burning wood for the regions main source of heat and cooking fuel.

Today, Khumbu is still a place without roads, Sherpa said. Despite the problematic environmental concerns due to neighboring China, a developing industrialized nation, Sherpas still get around on foot. Villagers participate in a colorful weekly Saturday market where most locals gather, trade and acquire staples, Sherpa said. “Attendees travel on foot as far as 60 to 100 miles packing their goods.”

Sherpa was also chief planner of the 2006 annual Dumje (religious) festival in his village that’s mostly divided between Hinduism and Buddhism (among others). Sherpa is a Buddhist.

Buddhism is the teachings of the awakened one. It’s a way of life, philosophically practical and a life-enhancing system of applied psychology founded on the “Four Noble Truths” which include suffering, the cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering, the way leading to the cessation of suffering. Buddhism is the fifth largest religion in the world, according to online Wikipedia.

“The annual Dumje festival takes place the first week in June,” Sherpa said. “It’s been a part of the local culture for thousands of years.” Roughly 3,000 participants attended the 2006 festival where Sherpa spearheaded a committee that organized, prepared and served about seven tons of food. The event started out with four days of fostered spiritual recognition followed by two days of chanting, dancing, and one day of the Lama’s (a holy man who has been reincarnated seven times) annual blessing.

After it was all over, Sherpa collapsed from exhaustion and slept 18 hours, he said.

Sherpa who is married, a father of two, a student, and a temp for Precision Plumbing, flies back and forth from Nepal to oversee and maintain the hydroelectric power plant and spearhead an annual event—all at his own expense. And a tall order for a Sherpa man from Khumbu.

Sherpa shared his experience in a worldview presentation, titled “Mt. Everest’s Khumbu Region: Change and Tradition in Sherpa Life” in a talk he gave Thursday.