Forces Driving More
Food was not abundant, nor did it offer much variation in diet.
Wood for cooking was scarce. The climate was generally cold. Water
was precious, and land to grow crops was limited. Yet despite these
everyday limitations, the people seemed to radiate contentment.
As I stared at the vistas below, a villager descended the trail from
higher up, sat down beside me, and asked if I was injured or required
assistance to walk back to camp. I was fine, I responded, before com-
menting on the villagers’ agility. They climbed steep trails as if the
mountains had disappeared and they were casually strolling along
perfectly flat land. They did this at altitudes two miles above sea level,
where oxygen was noticeably thinner. Listening to my observation he
smiled back at me, no doubt wondering why I was such a weakling!
As we talked, I asked him about his village and how it was or-
ganized. When he brought up the mayor, I asked if this position was
considered the most important role in the community. Oh no, he said,
that distinction fell to the watermaster, the person who oversaw how
much water each villager received to irrigate individual plots of land
planted in either corn or potatoes.
With my Western background, I automatically presumed that the
watermaster had the difficult job of mediating who received more
water and who ended up with less. So I asked him how the watermaster
arbitrated such tough decisions. There was no conflict, he said—in
fact, it was quite easy. At harvest, those who produced potatoes traded
with those who produced corn. In his case, he grew potatoes while his
neighbor grew corn. The more water the neighbor had, the more corn
there would be to trade for his potatoes. “I want him to have as much
water as he needs,” he told me.
Thinking that maybe this was just an extension of a barter economy,
I asked him what happened if someone in the community became ill
or was injured, and could not work. He responded that people helped
out until the person was able to resume.
His comments drew me back to the support my family received
following the fire. But there was another insight embedded in his an-
swer: through the behavior of each person, the village as a whole had
established a form of community health insurance. When people were
unable to work, their loss rippled throughout the community. Getting
them back on their feet was in everyone’s best interest. Those helping