With the Librarianship and Archival Studies students of the UdeA

Since some time ago, the students of librarianship and archival studies, from the University of Antioquia, gathered in a Research Seminary, wanted to ask about the rural world; many observed their peasant roots or those of their parents; others, tired of the emptiness of meaning in the urban life of Medellin, aspired to know the wisdom of that forgotten or invisible oracle of nature.

So we started to build workshops, social cartographies, readings of rural texts: then we turned our eyes to Cajamarca, to Máxima Acuña, to the campesinos: women, men, children, young people; to their Network of Rural Libraries and with them to Alfredo Mires Ortiz, the man who carries and enlivens the voice of the villagers of Cajamarca, to those whom we want to know and from whom we want to learn.

We began to cherish a dream: to be closer to Cajamarca and its Rural Librarians. And part of this dream was fulfilled because the students could be with Alfredo on 28th November 2016, in the University of Antioquia.

He has taught us, he has shown us how, who and why they carry out the work of the Network of Rural Libraries; the work of gathering the oral tradition of their communities; the reading, the books and their role in the Cajamarca context; the solidarity and communal work that guides their human principles.

For Alfredo an embrace of gratitude for reconnecting us, through the voices of the campesinos of Cajamarca, with the cosmos: as he says "Of all with everything, between all, for everything".

An immense embrace for the Cajamarcan villagers!