Sir Ed 's real legacy

Taranaki Daily News

Under a drizzly sky in the remote Nepali village of Samagon, a group of children sing and laugh.

It is a bright sight in a bleak valley. Mingma Nuru Sherpa, 37, turns to his fellow dentists, a group of volunteers from SmileHigh, and tells them to look at the children's beaming faces.

"Right now, they have no real future," he says. "This is what you have done. You have given them a reason to smile and this is why we do what we do."

The statement is heartfelt. Some of the dentists cry. They are all aware that when SmileHigh, the dental aid organisation Dr Mingma co-founded with Taranaki man Julian Haszard, packs up and leaves, the children will continue their subsistence life, needing food aid to survive and lacking any health care. If they are lucky enough to go to school, it will be one without walls.

Thirty percent of Samagon's children die before the age of five.

Samagon mirrors Dr Mingma's own childhood growing up in the village of Khumjung in the Everest region. His prospects were as bleak as the Samagon children's and dentistry or any other career would have been impossible if not for the intervention of one man: Sir Edmund Hillary.

In 1960, Sir Edmund received an immediate answer after asking a Sherpa friend what he could do for his people.

"Burra [big] Sahib, our children have eyes but they are blind and cannot see. Therefore, we want you to open their eyes by building a school in our village of Khumjung."

So he did. Sir Edmund organised funds and built the school, kicking off what would be the ongoing work of the Himalayan Trust.

So it was with some irony that it took a pupil of this very school, Dr Mingma, to open my eyes to the true legacy of the New Zealander.

Probably like many who witnessed his funeral last year, my memories turned to Sir Edmund's ascent of Everest and conquest of the South Pole.

I knew, of course, of his aid work in the Everest region, but I really had no clue to its extent. The point was not that I did not know the actual number of schools and hospitals he helped build. It was that I had no idea how many lives he touched and changed.

Sir Edmund said his greatest satisfaction was the work he undertook in the Everest region to help the Sherpa and I had the opportunity to talk with the living proof of his actions.

Dr Mingma counted Sir Edmund - and Lady June Hillary - as a friend. His father worked on several Hillary expeditions, including as cook on the jetboat journey up the Ganges River in India.

Almost every year, the young Dr Mingma would see the big Sahib in the Everest region when he was building schools, health clinics, bridges and airports.

During his own visits to New Zealand, Dr Mingma stayed in the Hillarys' Remuera Road home in Auckland.

"He said to me, Mingma, if you go on the deck, be careful. Some of the boards are a bit rotten.

"I couldn't believe it. He was one of the first men to climb Everest and he had a neglected deck that had not been fixed.

"He could have lived a life of luxury and privilege, but he chose not to. He chose to use his fame to help others even at the expense of his own home.

"And even then he was watching out for me, making sure I didn't hurt myself on his deck."

Sir Edmund's selflessness resonated with Dr Mingma who, like most Sherpa, is Buddhist.

"Like the children of Samagon, we basically had nothing when I was young.

"He changed my life. I know I would not be a dentist now if he hadn't built the school in Khumjung.

"So to me, Hillary is like a god. To me, he is like a Buddha."

It is a stunning compliment. He is talking about a good Kiwi bloke, albeit a fairly special one, but the accolade is not for climbing the world's highest mountain or reaching the South Pole, but for helping others.

Dr Mingma continues.

"We are born naked and die naked. You can't take your money with you. The only thing you can take with you are your actions.

"We are counted by our actions. This is what Hillary did."

When Dr Mingma talks of his family, it sounds incredibly normal. His parents continue to live in Khumjung in a pleasantly modernised home. A brother and his wife live in New Zealand, working at the Hermitage Hotel in Mount Cook Village.

An uncle, Chhuldim Temba Sherpa, is the managing director of the trekking company Mountain Experience, based in Kathmandu.

There are other relatives living in New York, where a large Sherpa population exists. And Dr Mingma is a dentist. After scoring excellent marks at Khumjung High School, he won an Everest Marathon Fund scholarship and studied in both Canada and Fiji before returning to Nepal.

He has opened his own dental practice in Kathmandu.

What is really incredible about these stories is the normality of hundreds of Sherpa lives and the opportunities now open to them.

Dr Mingma's dental practice is a world away from that of the shoeless boy who used to live in Khumjung with a bleak future had it not been for education at the new local school.

Since 1960, Sir Edmund's Himalayan Trust has built 27 schools and is responsible for the running of 63. It provides scholarships and teacher training. It has built two hospitals, several village health clinics, bridges and airports. It also supports reforestation projects. Dr Mingma's thanks is just one from thousands of Sherpa.

Back in the Nubri Valley, life is hard.

At 3500m, the damp mountain air means hacking coughs and flu are commonplace among the young and old. Poor health is not unexpected, but the closest health facilities are either a six-day trek or an expensive helicopter flight away .

Only three months' worth of food can be grown on local farmland. The United Nations World Food Programme (UNWFP) is relied upon to provide food during the other nine months.

In conjunction with UNWFP, Dr Mingma and Dr Haszard run a SmileHigh clinic to educate children about oral health, fix cavities and pull rotten teeth. At a community meeting recently, Samagon elders were asked what was required for the people of the Nubri valley.

"What they asked for was exactly what the Sherpa asked Hillary for 50 years ago: education and better health care for their children," Dr Mingma says.

And so a story similar to Sir Edmund's aid work with the Sherpa is unfolding in the Nubri Valley and a key player is a boy from the first school the Kiwi built. So maybe this will be Sir Edmund's greatest legacy: inspiring others to help those in need.

It is an inspiration required in Nepal, because there are hundreds of villages like Samagon in the remote valleys of the Himalayan mountains.

"In 50 years, 100 years, in a 1000 years, we will still remember Hillary," Dr Mingma says.

"He is like a Buddha."

* Mike Scott's trip to Nepal to document the work of SmileHigh was made possible with the help of Canon, Marmot, Scarpa, Singapore Airlines and Himalayan Experience.