Our trip to
Trekking in the Nepalese
Himalayas is like time-travelling. The further away you go from roads or
airfields, the further back in time you are, turning back the clock through the
centuries to the pre-industrial era, a time before roads, machines,
electricity, processed food, pesticides, McDonalds, airfresheners, television
and computers.
I love trekking because of
the stunningly beautiful scenery, simplicity of life, exercise and friendly
people. But as processed food begins to reach this remote kingdom, I am also
interested to observe the introduction of food additives into subsistence diets.
For hundreds of years, hill tribes in the
They also know that these
transitions are taking place faster and faster due to globalisation of our food
supply. Changes that happened over a period of 150 years or more in European
countries are now happening within 10 years in areas of
The problem with subsistence eating is periodic
scarcity of food due to weather or seasonal variations, leading to malnutrition
or starvation; lack of variety can lead to nutrient deficiencies, and it is
difficult to maintain a clean water supply as the population increases. People
are most likely to die young from diarrhoeal diseases, infectious diseases or
accidents.
Increasing affluence brings
food security, but as we are currently learning, too much affluence leads to
the diseases of westernisation, namely obesity, cardiovascular disease,
diabetes, asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, ADHD, ODD, learning difficulties
and the rest.
So it was with great
trepidation that I returned to Namche Bazaar, capital of the Sherpa region,
where I had last spent ten weeks trekking and doing volunteer work in 1979.
Everyone who has ever read a
mountaineering book knows how western visitors describe the Sherpas:
prodigiously strong, cheerful, intelligent, loyal, hospitable, polite and
respectful yet never servile, devout, interesting and fun to be with - these
are just a few of the most common descriptions.
After Sir Edmund Hillary and
Sherpa Tenzing climbed Mt Everest, Sir Edmund devoted his life to improving the
Sherpa lifestyle through building village schools and hospitals, and an
airstrip to fly supplies into a region that had previously been an arduous two
week trek from the capital city of
The last time I visited, I
too had walked all the way from the roadhead, staying in lodges that served the
trade route between
In those days there were few
trekkers and once I left the main trail, I often stayed in one or two roomed
houses with families, joining them around the cooking fire, unthinkingly
observing their eating and child-rearing practices. Altogether I spent over 12
months on this style of travel in
This time I was trekking
with my husband Howard, again carrying our own packs and walking from the
roadhead which had advanced through many villages in the meantime. I had heard
that the popularity of trekking had mushroomed, that up to 100,000 trekkers per
year now flew into Sir Ed’s airstrip at Lukla, and wondered whether this had
changed the Sherpas.
We had chosen to trek off-season to avoid the crowds
and this strategy turned out to be spectacularly successful. On the third day,
we were snowed in by the heaviest snowfall in 62 years, and spent most of the
rest of our trip floundering and slipping in deep snow and ice, over seven high
passes, 400 kilometres, and 31 days, ending up in an extremely remote region in
Namche Bazaar itself was covered in snow and ice, and
mostly closed. We found ourselves a hotel with three stories of guest rooms, a
few hours of hydro electricity each evening which provided weak lighting and
satellite TV, occasional cold running water, indoor western style toilets that
sometimes flushed, and an indoor shower room in the basement run by an overhead
bucket of hot water. These were
unimaginable luxuries compared to my previous visits. Western-style comfort –
and western-style food – had arrived.
Thirty years ago, the Sherpa diet consisted largely
of potatoes, boiled, fried, mashed or in stews, with a few other home-grown
seasonal vegetables such as shallot; barley, buckwheat and millet; yak milk,
butter, cheese and yoghurt in season, and very occasional yak meat. Now, they
eat more rice, or - depending how westernised they are - wheat, especially as
instant noodles. MSG is added to soups and stews, packet soups with flavour
enhancers are consumed as soups or used as bases for other meals, including the
national meal of dahlbaat (rice and lentils). Commercial sauces and pickles
(achar) may contain preservatives and flavour enhancers. Jams from
On my first day in Namche, I was shocked to see a
small Sherpa child having a tantrum in the street. Screaming “no, no, no”, he
was out of control, pulling away from his mother’s hand, and throwing himself
around. In the west we are told that tantrums are a normal part of child
development – like headbanging - but I realised I had never seen a tantrum in
the over twelve months I had spent in Nepal, even though Nepali families live a
lot of their lives in the view of others, due to the communal nature of their
houses and villages.
As I looked around, I saw
that many of the Sherpa children had changed. I wouldn’t blame them for not
wanting to be polite to tourists – due to overexposure - but this was different.
I noticed louder voices and disrespectful behaviour to both tourists and their
parents. I heard family squabbles behind closed doors that sounded just like
western families having a major row, along with sounds of children being hit
and consequent screaming – previously inconceivable in Nepal where conflict is
traditionally avoided and children are never hit. I saw a mother doing her
washing at the communal tap, ignoring her toddler who sobbed and screamed
inconsolably while trying to climb on her back. I saw frazzled relatives of all
ages unsuccessfully trying to rock crying babies to sleep, and sullen looking
Sherpanis caring for young children who needed the fulltime attention of an
adult to keep them occupied.
In a number of places where we stopped for lunch or
overnight a child would pester us endlessly to entertain them until we were
exhausted by their demands. Their mothers looked exhausted too, and spoke to
them sharply in a way I had never seen before. In one place, Howard said, “I’m
not staying here another night, I can’t stand any more of that kid.”
In short, the Sherpa kids were behaving like Western
kids. They were also eating like Western kids. I was reminded of the terrible
days I spent with my children when, unaware of the effects of food colours, I
had been giving them Tang powdered orange juice every day. Then I found that
Tang has arrived in Sherpa country. Nearly every house we visited in that
region, even the smallest and poorest, had a large jar of Tang, or a similar
lemon flavoured cordial – both contained the artificial colour tartrazine (102)
well known for causing irritability, restless, inattention and sleep
disturbance, exactly what we were seeing in abundance before our eyes.
Of course, not all children
were affected, and the children we got to know were not affected all the time.
Periods of charm were interspersed with periods of rattiness for no obvious
reason. Reactions depend on dose, and can be delayed. Tartrazine and other
additives can also cause irritable bowel symptoms, anxiety, headaches,
lethargy, rashes and many other symptoms. That’s why it is virtually impossible
for parents to understand the effects of these nasty food chemicals on their
children.
After two weeks in the Khumbu, with the screams of
the children still ringing in our ears, we climbed over a high snowy pass to
begin the long, hard trek to Tumlingtar in
When I had my children, I
used to wonder about child labour. While I deplore this appalling practice –
which still happens in some places in
I feel very sad about what is happening in the
Khumbu. I had previously hoped that the strong people of the
By Sue Dengate, April 2007
