Posted by Editor: FDBobko
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The FOGHORN 
ROTARY CLUB OF HALF MOON BAY
October 28, 2021 
          
Norbu Tenzing
VP, American Himalayan Foundation
 
  
Article by Stacy Trevenon       
Photos by Dianne Bobko
 
 President Joe  introduced the day’s speaker, Norbu Tenzing, whom he had known for some 40 years and whom he described as a good friend. In an email sent to the club, Joe had explained that Norbu Tenzing is Vice President of the American Himalayan Foundation, where he had spent years fundraising and overseeing projects and programs that take care of the people who live in that Himalayan area. The American Himalayan Foundation (AHF) is based in San Francisco, and its programs include STOP Girl Trafficking, education, health care, Sherpas and Everest, Cultural Revival and Protecting Tigers. 

Norbu grew up in Darjeeling, and got his college education in New England. Joe met him in 1976 when Joe was co-leading a trip with Norbu’s father, Tenzing Norgay, (known for having summitted Mount Everest with Edmund Hillary in 1953.) They trekked above Darjeeling and toured through Bhutan. Joe recalled Norbu’s family, mentioning a grandfather who came from near the Tibetan border. The world is smaller now than it was then, he noted.
Norbu’s father had  been involved in early attempts to scale Everest (height: 29,035 feet above sea level, making it the highest point on Earth), and Darjeeling was a staging point for that trip. Tenzing Norgay had made six attempts to climb Everest before succeeding on May 29, 1953. At the time, Norbu said, Everest was seen as a part of Earth that rises up close to the moon, and climbing it meant dangers and deprivation. But that climb is easier now, he said, with practices like food delivered to camping sites. There has always been a powerful comradeship among climbers, and back then scaling Everest meant accomplishing something that had never been done before. Today, he said, that climb, open to the public, plays a major role in the area’s tourism-based economy.
After Tenzing Norgay scaled Everest, his subsequent accomplishments included an adventure in Kathmandu, which has since become a major metropolis dealing with urban drift, pollution and now Covid. Tenzing had met world figures including the Queen of England and Jawaharlal Nehru. Norbu said his father inspired him to promote adventure in the country, and he began with a mountaineering institute in Darjeeling that has served adventurers from students to a Prime Minister. 

Joe spoke about the nonprofit AHF, which assists mountain community residents in need. It promotes education, intervenes with girls at risk of being pulled into trafficking, supports cultural revitalization in Tibet and Buddhism in Nepal, and works with crisis intervention. Nepal, Norbu noted, depends on tourism, and climbs of Everest are a big source of its income.

Norbu has helped highlight celebrations for 40 years with the AHF, and Joe will help this year with a virtual celebration, target date Nov. 10. Joe himself has led two treks in Nepal, and identified the Dalai Lama as a supporter, noting that the principles of the AHF are patterned after the Dalai Lama’s philosophies. He noted also that humanitarian issues are top priorities for the AHF, that the organization had hosted His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and its priorities include food and medical assistance in India and work with Tibetan communities and refugees. Norbu himself guides expeditions to Nepal twice annually, training for them with hikes in Marin County. Having had multiple relatives who have climbed Everest, he declared that he is “happy to guide you.” His own brother has also taken up guiding, a risky job for those making a living from it – given that that means establishing a base camp at 29,000-plus feet amid shifting ice floes and unpredictable avalanches, and it pays relatively little. But to the Sherpa guides, the mountain provides livelihoods.
He mentioned his daughter Olivia, an outdoorsy lady of 27 who lives on a ranch in the Half Moon Bay area and loves animals, but is not into climbing mountains. Norbu mentioned that Kathmandu is now a metropolis, rich with history and culture, but affected by modern issues like pollution and urban drift, and is slowly recovering from the impact of Covid.

Joe spoke a little about his own experience in guiding, how guides have day and night shifts, and mentioned seeing egrets during a day shift and fruit bats during a night shift. Questions from the Rotarians followed, and Joe led those off by asking what is it like to climb Everest? Norbu said he hadn’t scaled Everest but his brother did. He said the mountain is a sacred place to the Sherpas, and a fixed point on bucket lists for others motivated by notoriety, money -- and spirituality. “If your motivation is in the right spirit, you get what you put in” to the climb, he said. He mentioned Edmund Hillary and recounted his father’s climbing experiences, saying that when his father reached the top of the mountain, he made offerings, and made a point of looking both to the arid north and south to India and Nepal. He also mentioned the creation underway of a virtual reality experience of that first ascent of Everest, which will eventually be available to the public.

Warren Barmore asked about mountain-related work with tourism, and Norbu spoke of KarmaQuest, a business with Coastside roots. Norbu knows Wendy, an early KarmaQuest founder, who inspired his relationships with travel companies such as North Face. Norbu said that visits to the region stay with people: “Something happens to people who go to Nepal,” he said.

Ginger recalled taking a flight over the mountain on one of her work-related journeys, calling it “breathtaking.” Norbu nonchalantly responded that the mountain is always there, offering the best scenery in the world, and how his staff of guides are about 93 percent vaccinated now.
 
     
 
 
Club Meeting - October 28 , 2021
 
President Joe called the meeting to order.
Pledge of Allegiance - President Joe Brennan led the Pledge of Allegiance 
 
                   
Inspirational Thought - For the thought of the day, Pat Roma offered a quote from Maya Angelou:

We, Angels and Mortals, Believers and 
    Nonbelievers,
Look heavenward and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at our world and speak the
     word aloud. 
Peace. We look at each other, then into
    ourselves,
And we say without shyness or apology or
    hesitation:
 
                                    Peace, My Brother.
                                    Peace, My Sister.
                                    Peace, My Soul. 
 
Announcements
Kevin O’Brien reported on Meals on Wheels, how it has five routes on the Coastside and how for the people it serves, it is “the one good meal they have a day.”
 
Work is continuing to install Little Libraries on the Coastside over the next week or two.
 
The Rotary club will hold an in-person social meeting on Nov. 4, and menus were discussed. Stacy Trevenon suggested an emphasis on comfort food, given the coming cooler weather. Joe suggested indoor meals on picnic tables. 
Discussion shifted to the End-Polio cruise on the Potomac, originally scheduled for Sunday, Oct. 24 and now moved to the 31st.
 
The proposed schedule that day is: boarding the ship at 12:30 p.m. and the cruise running from 1 to 3 p.m. Proof of vaccination will be needed; Liz has set up food so that there is no need to share trays. Docents should be on hand to explain the ship’s history with FDR. Its current berth is in the Port of Oakland.
 
Kevin suggested that since some extra tickets have come in from people who found they can’t make the cruise, Rotarians should call Joe with suggestions as to whom the tickets should go. At this point, the count stands at 90.
Discussion is underway to resume meetings in person. No meetings will take place on the Thursdays that coincide with Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day.
 
As to regular club meeting places, we will meet at the Half Moon Bay Library should that option become available, or at the Odd Fellows Hall if it does not. Ginger Minoletti mentioned Joaquin Jimenez, whom Stacy said she has invited to participate in upcoming meetings/events along with his wife. 
 
Joe and Ginger will meet with Joaquin Jimenez  and set up his induction for next week.  
 
Joaquin spoke of upcoming Dia de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, observances on the Coastside, and of the ofrenda he is setting up at Mac Dutra Park. He will set up another in his office, which will include a portrait of Frida Kahlo. Joaquin invited the Rotarians to come and visit the ofrenda, and Joe invited him to Sunday’s gathering, though he may be unable to go due to other commitments.
 
 
Warren briefly raised the point of transportation to the event Sunday.
 
 Happy/Crappy News yescrying
 
Ginger said she will have to miss the next couple of meetings due to visiting her sister and brother-in-law.
 
Kevin will have to miss then too.
 
EJ Dieterle said that he is going to go to Germany for a couple of weeks, and noted that tonight will be the last Oktoberfest.
 
Paul Wrubel presented an international-committee-focused proposal for a college educational fund, and mentioned an international “Re-Imagine Education” competition which has hundreds of entrants from around he world and is focused on changes like making education affordable.  His proposal has made the final group to be considered for the grant.
 
John and Larkin Evans are heading to Simi Valley to see their daughter and grandchild.
 
Stacy and Doug are heading to Southern California to visit Doug’s family to celebrate his dad’s 94th birthday. 
 
 
Pres. Joe's Weekly 'States of the Union Quiz - ​​​​​​​North Carolina
 
The visit to a state portion of the meeting centered on North Carolina, called the “Tar Heel State” for the use of tar-like pitch on its roads. It also referred to fighters in the Civil War, once in a derogatory manner but now local residents take pride in their past. The state capital is Raleigh. It is fondly known as the sweet potato capital of the U.S., and is sometimes referred to as “first in flight” since the Wright Brothers launched their famous flight in 1903 (but the Wright Brothers originally being from Ohio has caused some consternation from that area.) Off the coast of North Carolina, the Great Barrier Reef has made the area known as the “graveyard of the Atlantic” due to many shipwrecks occurring there due to windy conditions. The East Coast also was the origin point of the New Order Fresnel lighthouse lens; one of those was shipped in pieces to Pigeon Point Lighthouse a few years ago.
 
North Carolina is also home to Krispy Kreme donuts and the largest mansion in the U.S., which opened on Christmas Day, 1895. Nearby is a spot near the Blue Ridge Mountains where lightning bugs put on such a show that people make reservations in the early summer to come see it. 
 
Asked if any Rotarians had experiences or stories from that part of the country, Warren Barmore responded that he had visited Virginia, spent a week there and visited several lighthouses, and E.J. also happily reported visiting the northeastern region.
 
Dianne recalled a significant move to Goldsboro, N.C., where they lived for two years. She reported that living in North Carolina was quite an experience in many ways - beautiful springs, dry (alcohol) county, and racial separation laws she had never experienced growing up in Denver. It was a quick move a few weeks after their daughter was born. Bo was to be first on the list of fighter pilots to be sent to Vietnam a few months later as a forward air controller and be parachuted into the jungle to call bombing raids. But the Air Force needed 2 jet pilots in North Carolina immediately and his commander sent him. Two years after that he went to the Test Pilot School in CA and two years after that was chosen as an Astronaut. 

Coming Events

A social, in-person meeting on November 4 is in the planning stage. 

The December 16 Christmas meeting and District Governor visit will be at the Oddfellows Hall.