Today we had the Puja ceremony!
It is a ceremony to ask the mountain for blessings and safety for our climb. The Monk visits each company’s camp for each Puja, and reads scriptures. Juniper is smoked, and there are bells that are rung at certain times of the chants. It lasts about 2 hours, and during this, all of the climbers sit on a big mat, or on chairs and we drink tea. It was such a beautiful ceremony and a lovely day for it, it was very sunny and it was comfortable being in just a thermal top.
At the end of the ceremony, rice flour is handed out. Honestly, I find it quite hard to understand everything that is happening, but I copy the Sherpas, and we all through the rice flour into the air and on each other. We then get given more rice flour to rub on each other’s faces, as we wish them good luck and a safe climb. At this point there is flour everywhere!
We then give a small donation to the monk and they pour some oil into our hands for us to drink (it doesn’t taste very good). We get a yellow string (I can’t remember what it’s called!) tied around our necks, that we are supposed to leave on until it falls off naturally. I think this is so that the monk’s blessing will stay with us throughout the climb and afterwards as well. We also receive a white Khata scarf, which many people tie to their packs.
I still have the yellow strings from my 3 other big Himalayan expeditions – I leave them on for as long as possible, to keep the blessing, until my school makes me take them off.
As the last part of the official ceremony, we have to take a small shot of whiskey, but I especially don’t want to drink before heading up the mountain (not that I ever would 👀).
The Sherpas hand out lots beers and some soft drinks as well as some chocolates and cookies. We talk with other climbers and it’s really fun!
Some people have a long time until they start moving up, so they continued to drink and we had a bit of a party at night time because it was our friend Jeno’s birthday!
Dad and I’s original plan was to start our rotation tonight (about 1am on the 25th), but the winds are too strong so we will probably go tomorrow night.
