Part 1 of our journey into the Andean world and my own slight obsession with the concept and Quechuan word, Ayni, here.
The Quechuan word ‘Ayni’…a sublime and old Andean idea; a responsibility that one has to one’s community. A guiding principle and philosophy rather than any law, it very roughly translates into ‘reciprocity’. A part of the social responsibility to one’s community and the earth, the Pachamama. The idea is a living thing and not simply an arcane idea where one can sit on one’s ass and simply ‘not collaborate’. It remains a term (and concept) that stays in my blood from our precious weeks in Peru, and like so many of the mountain concepts, its’ time is always and it is ‘now’. Read more about our journey and the characters in an upcoming piece in the very Canadian Outpost Magazine. And, oh, the characters oozed integrity…and every one of them could slug back tea.