Updates From Everest Tumpach Marital Bliss for a Yak Man Friday, September 5, 1997 (Everest North Face base camp, Tibet) Well, today was not a nice day. It rained on and off all day, temperature was only 60F. Right now as I am writing this it is after 8pm and it is raining very hard. There was not much to do except drink TEA and COFFEE. We could not even charge the batteries on our UNISOLAR blankets. Thirteen members of the Korean Expedition left today for ABC with four Sherpas; the rest of their team is at BC. The SWISS and Colombian teams are waiting for better weather to go back to ABC and go for SUMMIT ATTACK. Around 4pm, the rain stopped for long enough for me and my cameraman to join the yak men to go herd the yaks from surrounding hills and feed them a little food; Yak men prepared for better nutrition. They feed them with prepared food a few days before the yaks will carry loads to ABC at 21500’ elevation where is nothing to eat for them. The trip from BC to ABC takes two days and it is 21km long. The yaks who will carry our equipment must also carry their food for two days. The yak men are very interesting people. They are farmers from local villages and during the trekking and climbing season they spend most of the time with the yaks on the trail from BC to ABC. Talking to them I find out that one adult yak is worth $300 and three of the yak men own 60 head of yaks each. So it became clear to me that the are very well off on Tibetan standard, but cash poor. One interesting story about the men in TIBET is that they do share their wife between two to four brothers. It is a way of life here that Tibetan women have two to four husbands all brothers. Most of the time there is only one at home, the others are in the hills with the yaks or went to the market to sell their goods, which takes up to six weeks or farming in the fields. If it happens that more than one husband is home at the time, then the one who hangs his hat on the door first will be sharing the bed with the wife that night. It is very interesting and their comment was: WE LIKE IT THIS WAY. When I told them that in Arabian countries it is the opposite — THEY LAUGHED SO HARD they COULD NOT stop. When I asked them if they would like to live with the ARABS, the answer was NO WAY. They said they have a hard enough time putting up with the wife for the few days they are at home. Well — WE ALL LAUGHED very hard. — George Tumpach PREVIOUS UPDATE | UPDATES HOME | NEXT UPDATE