We enjoyed a beautiful, sunny day at Everest base camp today, which was perfect for our puja.  A puja is a Buddhist ceremony which includes prayer, chanting, dancing, drinking, and making offerings.  In our case, the offerings were made to Mt. Everest.  The Nepali refer to the mountain as Sagarmatha or “Mother of the Universe”.  Today we offered her fried dough, beer, yak milk butter, candy, and whiskey.  If I were a deity, those are the offerings that I would appreciate :)  

The ceremony begins by burning juniper on a stone alter.  Then, the Lama chants, and intermittently throws rice in the air while blessing the climbers ice axes, crampons, and other gear.  The high point of our two-hour ceremony was raising prayer flags over camp.

Prayer flags being raised above camp
Photo:  Lisa White

After the prayer flags were in place, we each received a kata and string from the Lama and we took turns wishing each other good luck and long life by wiping sampa (flour) on one another's cheeks. 

Wiping sampa on one another's cheeks to wish good fortune and long life
Photo:  Lisa White

The puja is done to ask for good fortune and safe climbing for the Sherpa and climbers and is especially important for the Sherpa because now they can begin climbing in order to prepare the mountain for us to safely climb.