The Babylon Travelers Club met November 26 in the home of Ms. Patricia Dwyer. The first paper of the evening was a book report entitled Seven Years in Tibet presented by Ms. Jane Wilson. The author, Heinrich Harrer, an Austrian mountaineer, was with a German climbing expedition when World War II broke out in 1939. He was imprisoned in India by the British. Harrer and his teammate Peter Aufschnaiter escaped to Tibet in 1944. Two years later, after an exhausting journey over mountain passes and across the Tibetan plateau in the middle of winter, they arrived in Lhasa where they were warmly welcomed. Harrer eventually became the friend and tutor of the young Dalai Lama. Soon after the Chinese invaded Tibet in 1951, Harrer left and wrote the book in 1953.

The next book report Touching My Father’s Soul by Jamling Tenzing Norgay was given by Ms. Joan Rague. Jamling was the son of Tenzing Norgay, who with Edmund Hillary firs climbed Mount Everest. He was born in India and went to his father’s Himalayan Mountaineering Institute. Jamling went to college in American and lived here for 10 years. He returned to Nepal and was the lead Sherpa in the trek that filmed a successful climb for the IMAX film in 1996. Before he accepted the role of lead Sherpa, he received positive readings from the Rumpache Lama. The Sherpas had ceremonies at base camp with rituals that included installing prayer flags, receiving blessed objects, including rice and mandala sand. He believed that the struggle and mastery of any task gives our lives meaning.