Wolfgang Nairz poses with an unidentified Nepalese sherpa
© AFP/File Ho

LIENZ, Austria, Aug 24, 2008 (AFP) - Nima Dickey is one of 30 Nepalese sherpas working in Austrian mountain huts over the summer to earn some money and learn Western-style lodge management.

Launched by Wolfgang Nairz, who participated in the first Austrian expedition up Mount Everest in 1978, the programme is in its fifth year and has had tremendous success.

"We have about 200 applications" every year, says Nairz. Not to mention 200 letters from German and Austrian trekkers returning from Nepal who constantly write to him, recommending potential candidates.

Although he did not initiate the idea, Nairz helped legalise it.

"There were already individual cases where sherpas were invited to work in mountain huts, but illegally, and they were caught and the cabin manager was penalised because they were here without a permit."

"So they came to me, because I've spent a lot of time in Nepal and know a lot of people there, and asked if I could do something."

As non-EU citizens, Nepalese cannot get seasonal workers' permits in Austria but Nairz got an exemption for 30 trainees in Tirol.

The Nepalese Mountaineering Association (NMA) and mountain hut owners help him select the candidates every year, based on who is most likely to benefit from the programme.

"The prerequisite is that they work in the trekking business, as a guide, in a lodge, or as the owner of a lodge."

"When you travel around Nepal, you can tell now which lodges are managed by people who were in Austria: from a hygiene point of view, from the way they're managed, the cleanliness, they're just better," says Nairz.

In Tirol, the sherpas -- a word meaning "eastern people" in Tibetan but often used to describe Himalayan porters -- learn how to deal with Western tourists, handle supplies, repair damaged paths and even make local food.

An unidentified Nepalese sherpa
© AFP/File Ho

Nima, 28, has been working at the Lienzer Huette in eastern Tirol since mid-June and has become an expert at making Kaiserschmarrn: a sort of Austrian pancake served with plum compote.

"That's her thing, she's really mastered it," says her boss Berni Baumgartner, smiling.

Nima owns a lodge in eastern Nepal's Solukhumbu district but had to close for the rainy season and left her husband and three young children behind to come and work in the Austrian Alps for three and a half months.

With no German and only halting English, language was a problem when she arrived, not least because of the locals' difficult Tirolean dialect.

"Now it's okay but at the beginning it was very hard," admits Baumgartner.

While the sherpas take home invaluable experience, their motives for coming to Austria are often more basic.

"I think it's really about the money, to be able to feed their family," says Baumgartner, who hosted another sherpa before Nima and has repeatedly traveled to Nepal.

Like all the hut owners, she pays for the flights to Austria but she also gives her trainees a new set of clothes when they arrive.

"At first, they don't want to use these new clothes, they want to keep them in brand new condition to bring them home," she says.

Nima, who says she has trouble paying for her children's schooling, adds: "What I get here is big money. In Nepal, it's small money."

"For them, it's like winning the lottery ... After three or four months, they're going home with 5,000 euros. That's 450,000-500,000 Nepalese rupees," says Nairz.

In comparison, a teacher in Nepal earns 10,000 rupees per month, a doctor 15,000 rupees and a waiter 3,000 rupees, he adds.

Nairz handles all the visas, transfer costs and personal guarantees but each sherpa can only take part in the programme three times.

"There's a sense of continuity, they learn more that way and it's better for the hut owners if the same person comes again because he or she already knows how the place is run, what needs to be done and doesn't have to learn from scratch."

But others must be given the same opportunity.

"I just want to help these people, I've been to Nepal so often and had so many lovely experiences, so I want to give back a little of what I received," says Nairz.

"I feel very close to these people ... And I have a sort of helper's syndrome," adds Baumgartner with a smile.

©AFP