11 August 2006, 19:11

The Aymara Tribe and My Present

Filed under:loose-bits, first-person by sunchild

The Aymara language, spoken by people living in the high Andes talks about the future as if it lies behind you and the past spreads out in front of you. Aymara speakers refer to the future as qhipa pacha/timpu meaning back or behind time and the past nayra pacha/timpu meaning front time. Their hand gestures are in keeping with their thoughts—they gesture ahead of themselves when remembering the past and backwards when talking about the future.

What is known is seen in front of you, what is unknown is behind you, hidden from view (the future).

I’ve reached my thirties with alarming rapidity. I didn’t know that I would live that long; I celebrate the accomplishment. My parents are visiting for my birthday. I see the folds of skin softening on my mother’s neck, the deepening bags under her eyes, the softening of my father’s stomach, the graying of their hair and I mark the passage of time in their faces and bodies in a way that I can’t seem to see in myself.


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