One afternoon in Boyacá, a man stood in front of his house and, pointing to the surroundings, said, “It is work, all work, every bit of it.” Work is crucial in continuing the material flow of strength from the earth to the crops to the house and back to the land. The people's efforts turn the force of food into labor which aids the land. But work alone is not sufficient, for without human spirit and will nothing would be accomplished (no lograría nada), and everything depends upon the might of God and the consumption of His strength contained in the crops. Elliptically, therefore, work is also spoken of as “force,” shorthand for “the force of work.” The term links work not only proximally to food but distally to the divinity.

THE FACES OF WORK

The people most frequently talk about work as “help” in the sense that work assists nature to produce, and in return the earth gives its help as base. But any work for the household is help, whether or not directly connected to the land. If children tend cattle or a flock, their work is help. All of a woman's work in the kitchen and elsewhere is help, and so is the man's work in the fields.