Story by: Rachel Ross
Illustration by: Callie Riek
Rich McLaughlin, a mathematics professor at UNC-Chapel Hill, inched his way across a swinging suspension bridge 1,000 feet in the air in Nepal. It was a cold, windy day, and McLaughlin, who has a fear of heights, gripped the frayed, steel cables so tightly that his hands bled.
“I was struggling,” McLaughlin said. “These bridges kept getting higher and higher and higher.”
McLaughlin and three other UNC professors were in Nepal last June to study the effects of climate change on three lakes in the Gokyo Valley, a six-day journey from Kathmandu where they landed.
They were hoping to compare their measurements of temperature and depth in the lakes to measurements taken by a Nepali scientist about 10 years prior. This comparison could show indications of change in temperature as a result of climate change.
Getting McLaughlin across that bridge may have been the easiest part of the journey. Along the way, the airlines lost their scientific equipment, their research permits had to be renewed on the spot because of changing politics in the region, and, most critically, the lakes they wanted to study are sacred in the local Buddhist tradition.
The population in the Gokyo Valley is majority Buddhist groups, like the Sherpa, who have historically been oppressed by the elite, ruling Hindu class.
The lakes are considered sacred because local Buddhists believe a deity lives in them.
“Both Buddhists and Hindus basically see human beings as polluting,” said Lauren Leve, a religious studies professor at UNC and a member of the research team. “And so, their tradition has been that humans don’t touch these lakes. There is a sign that says please don’t wash your feet or hands in these lakes.”
To conduct their research, the professors needed to take a boat on the lakes.
“Much to everybody’s surprise, we timed it perfectly…perfectly in the sense that it couldn’t be any worse timing,” said Roberto Camassa, a mathematics professor at UNC on the team.
Two mathematicians, a marine scientist and an anthropologist fly into Nepal…
Complications plagued the trip before it even began. The day before their planned departure, a dog bit McLaughlin, resulting in deep wounds. So, they delayed about a year.
When the team finally landed in Nepal, locals told them that they were no longer allowed to go on the lakes.
“We prepared intensely for this and when we got there it was like, ‘Eh, sorry, you can’t go on the lakes,’” McLaughlin said. His reaction, apt for a mathematician, was, “Does not compute. I don’t understand.”
For the past 20 years, scientific exploration in the region was fairly unregulated and did not respect Buddhists’ beliefs about how to treat the environment. But, after a Maoist revolution and the assassination of the monarchical family, Nepal put together a new, more representative constitution in 2015. Buddhist groups in the region are able to voice their grievances with scientific expeditions, and did so for the first time by withdrawing the permits for the UNC team’s project.
“They’re really figuring it out now,” said Lauren Leve, a religious studies professor at UNC and a member of the research team, “…and we arrive at a moment where who controls access to the environment is really being worked out. And you’re getting pushback for the first time.”
However, locals gave the team an opportunity to make a case at a meeting of } It was held in Namche Bazaar, a three-day trek from the airport.
Leve has lived in Nepal every summer for the past 20 years and speaks Nepali fluently, which came in handy at the meeting, held mostly in Nepali.
“Lauren translated bits every now and then, but for the most part, I think Rich, Roberto and I were just wondering what the heck was going on,” said Harvey Seim, a marine sciences professor at UNC and member of the team. “It was clearly very tense.”
Because Leve understood the opportunity the Buddhists had to exercise their new power, she was hesitant to continue with the research.
“I know she felt kind of felt like monkey in the middle, kind of getting it from every side,” Seim said of Leve.
Eventually Leve was able to find a compromise. The lake closest to the town of Gokyo is considered the most sacred because it is the primary residence of the deity. The team vowed not to take a boat out on the holiest lake if they could go onto the other two lakes.
The team also agreed to perform a religious ceremony called a “puja” each day before going onto the lakes to ask for forgiveness. It involved offering food and burning an aromatic shrub called “sunpati” as incense for the deity, Camassa said. The ceremony was performed by Sherpa porters because Buddhist monks were far away and unavailable.
With their newly stamped permits and lost equipment brought in by helicopter, the team embarked on the three-day journey from Namche Bazaar to Gokyo.
“We were such a motley crew…We would end up spread out over miles of the trail,” Seim said. “Roberto would just scamper on ahead. He was so into it. He was like a kid in a candy store.”
Camassa is from Milan, Italy, and grew up hiking in the Alps, so he travelled faster than the others. But Camassa’s experience in mountaineering experience paled in comparison to that of the Sherpas.
“We had our fancy outer shells and fancy boots and they [the Sherpas] would be in flip flops,” Seim said. “It’s 35 degrees and raining. What are you doing in flip flops, carrying my equipment that weighs 80, 90 pounds?”
Because Camassa travelled so quickly, he was the first to arrive in Gokyo by a few hours. He was with a Sherpa apprentice, Jeevan Tamang, who was training to be a leading guide.
When they arrived in Gokyo, a local representative approached Camassa and Tamang, saying they could not go on the lakes. Camassa was confused and exasperated, thinking they had changed their minds.
In the time that the team trekked from Namche Bazaar to Gokyo, the policy about permits had changed. With the new policy, they needed another level of approval. So, they made a phone call to the official whose approval was required and finally received permission.
According to Leve, the locals who approached Camassa knew about the new policy because they had read about it in the newspaper that day.
In addition to official permission, an influential woman in the community gave them a more spiritual blessing because she saw a good omen in the holiest of the lakes that morning. The woman also voiced her concerns about the drinking water to the team and they agreed to investigate it.
One of the streams leading to the drinking well colors the rocks red, indicating the water has a high level of iron, and possibly other heavy metals. Also, yaks are prevalent in the area and their feces could get in the water supply.
With goodwill established, the team set out on the approved lakes, performing the “puja” each day.
In addition to taking measurements on the lakes, a few members of the team also hiked to the Ngozumpa Glacier to conduct research. The water they were hoping to study on the glacier was down a hole. Camassa, being the most experienced mountaineer, was elected to take the measurements. With one hand he took the measurements and with the other he held a rope to keep from falling.
The team won’t be able to fully analyze their measurements until next October, when they return to Nepal to retrieve an instrument they left in one of the lakes to log its temperature throughout the year.
But they have been able to loosely compare their measurements to those a Nepali scientist took 10 years ago. Gokyo Lake 4 dropped 17 meters in depth and both lakes showed signs of warming up much earlier in the year than before, a possible effect of climate change.
On their way back to Kathmandu, the monsoon began to encroach. The airport in Kathmandu is considered the most dangerous in the world because it sits at a 20-degree angle, has a short runway and is so high up that flights cannot take off on a cloudy day. With the monsoon rains beginning, the team’s flight home was delayed a week.
“We barely got out,” Seim said. “We made it out to Kathmandu, but not all of our gear did. Some of our water samples and equipment had to be shipped after we left the country because it took a week or more just to have a flight that they could be carried on.”
Though the team came back with some scientific knowledge, they also brought back unexpected spiritual knowledge.
“Some of those beliefs don’t make sense, maybe to westerners, and maybe at the level of scientific thought…but at that the level of their core belief system you have to allow for that and try to find a way to work with that,” McLaughlin said. “It really became emotional and spiritual and fulfilling in a much broader sense.”
The team formed a strong connection with some of the Sherpas they worked with. Their main guide, Deep Rai, fell ill when the team returned to the U.S. and they started a fundraiser to help fund his treatment and the school he runs.
Leve is working to write a document, explaining the political and spiritual situation in Nepal to foreign scientists so that they can better understand how to respect the people and the land.
“I believe many people would not have a clue about what they’re walking into,” Seim said. “And I think that was the case for us.”
“I sure hope we can set up something long term where we can have our students go there or have some sort of exchange program set up,” McLaughlin said. “It would be a wonderful opportunity. Definitely some wonderful people over there that we’ve been fortunate to meet.”
