Sherpas are said to be children of the Himalayas. They introduced Mount Everest after Edmund Hillary conquered it. But they have been compelled to withdraw from their traditional role of mountain guides and turned into hoteliers. Some are chasing modern lives in the cities. Sherpas have been living the north west of Nepal since the beginning of 17th century but the world came to know about them only in the 20th century. Hillary was actually the one who first related to the Sherpas that mountaineering could be a business. Currently there are 150,000 Sherpas in the area. The Kumjhum School, set up by Hillary himself, is where almost every Sherpa child goes to study.
