Celebrating our descent to Lukla. We shared a meal with the entire staff and presented them with their gratuities. Later in the evening we toasted with a little moonshine-- "Roxy" as its known. Or gasoline, as it tasted.... And then we dueled with singing---Nepalis first, then countered with an American song...I wish I had video of the closing production of everyone doing the Hokey Pokey.
As far as tips and money go...the head sherpa guide in the group makes probably less than $10 a day (a fair wage here, even a little above average), but most of their earnings come from client tips. His total payment for 14 days with us was about $800. Some of cook staff and porters make as little as $250 for those 14 days. They sleep in cold tents, they rise early, they attend to clients every request and yet they are very grateful for this opportunity to work with Mountain Madness because being part of a trekking staff is a lucrative position.
A fun part of the evening was bequeathing some of our unwanted gear to the guides and staff. We all put our unwanted gear (coats, shoes, boots, sunglasses, waterbottles, socks, hats, etc) in a pile and there was a lottery system and each staff member "won" 2 items. The look on their faces when they received a coat or sunglasses worth a few hundred dollars....its just so hard to reconcile that with the way we consume so much here in the US.
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