I wanted to take the whole of La Paz with me. OK, maybe not the crazy streets, traffic and fumes.
Everywhere you looked there were indigenous ladies knitting or crocheting on the street, all without patterns, making the most complicated stuff. But my first experience of weaving was on the island of Taquile in the Peruvian side of Titicaca, the highest lake at altitude about 3900 meters above sea level. The indigenous people of Taquile are some of the finest knitters and weavers that I have ever come across. What surprised me was that the men knitted and the women weaved. But it’s not so surprising when you think that sailors originally knitted to pass the time back in the 18th century in Europe. Perhaps if there is something we should be more surprised with is that knitting nowadays is seen as gendered in the West. But even that has slowly started to change.
Both men and women learn from a very young age to knit and weave and the hats and belts they wear all symbolize their status in the community, so you know who is married, who is single and who’s an elder. The main square centre sells the crafts of the whole Island; each item has a tag to indicate which family made it so that the money can go directly to the maker once sold. The male elders of the community sell the crafts and they all sit around knitting with the wool in pockets and around their necks, needles clicking away.
