The village that asked Hillary for a school
Khumjung and its twin village Kunde are old Sherpa settlements, built where the shelf below Khumbila gave space for fields and pasture. Families here farmed potatoes and barley, herded yaks and nak to summer pastures, and traded with Tibet over the Nangpa La. Many of the Sherpas who carried loads for early Everest expeditions came from Khumjung, Kunde and Thame.
In 1960 and 1961 Edmund Hillary spent months in Khumbu with a scientific expedition. Village elders told him what they wanted most was a school for their children. In 1961 the Himalayan Trust, which he had just set up, built Khumjung School: two classrooms, with materials carried in on porters' backs. It grew into a full primary and secondary school with over 350 pupils. Hospitals at Kunde and Phaplu, more schools, bridges and water systems followed.
The same expedition gave Khumjung its odd fame. Hillary borrowed the gompa's revered yeti scalp, a conical cap of reddish hide, and took it abroad with a village elder, Khunjo Chumbi, for scientists to examine. They judged it to be made from the skin of a serow, a Himalayan goat-antelope. The scalp came home and still sits in the gompa, where visitors may see it for a donation.
