Phura Lama 

Age: 43   Hometown:  Makalu, Nepal 

On our first arrival in base camp about three weeks ago, I recall a friendly session of kicking around the hackey sack on one of the frozen glacial lakes.  As we laughed and stretched our legs after the trek up from Gorak Shep, one of the climbing sherpas dressed in lime-green fleece pants, an old fleece jacket and a tattered baseball hat hopped on the rocks, walking by our game with a smile wider and brighter than any one of us Americans could muster.  Not being able to resist this man's smile and energy, he was quickly invited to join in our game of hack.  Although foreign to the idea and techniques of the hack, his intensely pure and innocent sense of humor bubbled like a fountain and infected us all.  Soon, we were all sharing in the joyous laughter of just playing on the glacier.  We learned his name quickly: Phura (pronounced per-ba).