I learnt to spin in the rural Andes of Peru. I was five years old and already alarmingly behind the curve. [...] It took me over three years to become an adequate spinner. The year I was eight, my spinning was considered acceptable in quality by Andean standards (if slowly produced). Andean weavers require one type of yarn, fine and strong and smooth - and they are exacting judges, so this was no small feat. By this age, most girls in my peer group were spinning yarn for the family's weaving supply. Others had shown particular gifts for spinning and produced yarns for some of the town's finest weavers.
The rest of us, the merely adequate young spinners, regarded these girls with mild awe. Although it might sound like we'd spent our childhoods being sternly schooled in how to spin (and we had), our textile activities were our primary social outlet. We went out in the Inca ruins to pasture sheep, taking our spinning and weaving with us. We raced up and down hills and terraces, played tag, and gossiped. Spinning was one more game, even though we knew it was an important life skill. Those girls who were fast, perfect spinners at that age were like the girls who could sing or dance or run the fastest, only spinning was more important than that.
And we were competitive: we challenged each other to improve, constantly. By this time we were fearless with our spindles, which were never out of our hands unless we were weaving or eating. We spun while running, jumping, chasing sheep. We would pass spindles to each other while walking, talking, and spinning on them; we spun off the sides of Inca terraces, hearts pounding while the other girls watched, joking, chattering, saying, "You can't do it! It's going to break! You'll be chasing that spindle all the way down the hill!" The really good spinners never had to chase their spindles. As for me, it was a good thing I was one of the faster kids, because I chased my spindle a lot.
With these games and challenges and the strict standards of our elders, even the completely average spinners among us became capable of production spinning. It was simply part of our lifestyle, as commonplace and essential as tying shoes or talking on the phone are in the industrialized world.
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