In our 13!

We are encouraged encouraging.

Until just a while ago -and for many years- we were present only in ten of the thirteen provinces of Cajamarca, until they were encouraged in Santa Cruz and Jaén to form their libraries. Then, ten libraries were opened in Huamachuco, which belongs to the Department of La Libertad, promoted by our friends from the Amigo Project. And now, a little while ago, the spirit of teacher Sara Morerno has made possible the opening of a rural library in the northern province of San Ignacio.

In the hamlet Cruce Naranjos, Huarango district, they already have their rural library located in the Educational Institution 16643 San Pedro. The librarian is teacher Olga Mego and she has been working since August 20.

What more pleasant news for this dream that deepens and expands!

Monseñor Romero: "The challenge of going on living"

On 14^th October 2018, Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero was canonized. Romero, for his commitment to the poor, was murdered on 24^th March 24 1980, while saying mass in San Salvador.

Our brother Alfredo Mires was in El Salvador in the mid-90s and, on his return, he published "The challenge of going on living: Review of walks in Guatemala and El Salvador".

The book opens with two texts of Monsignor Romero located as epigraphs:

"A restructuring of our economic and social system is necessary, because you cannot be absolutizing that idolatry of private property."

"It's still time to take off the rings so that they will not take the hands off."

We share here a small excerpt related to "San Romero de América":

"Lord,

if you save El Salvador

do not save those who, as they killed,

enjoyed it.

To the cruel assassin,

the raider of the poor,

the rapist, the pig,

condemn them,

Lord.

I do not want to forget the tomb of Monsignor Romero, nor the corner where the killers killed him, who walk free if they kill and who jail if they are looked at.

In the room from where they dragged the six Jesuits of the Catholic University, to shoot them point-blank, a picture of Monsignor has the glass broken by the flame of the flamethrower with which they tried to kill his memory and only managed to fan his memory.

And in another painting he has another bullet in his chest, because those who killed him must dream at night and maybe they still are not convinced that he is dead. Maybe they believed that by killing a man they could annihilate his dreams.

I do not want to forget the dark corner of the sacristy where Romero lived, that kind of saint with the smell of a town, nor his clothes torn, nor his blood spilled. El Salvador has so much pain that I do not know where it fits."

Tool shed

The house of the Network of Rural Libraries of Cajamarca is an example of community work. In its construction there are those who have had the opportunity to learn - from making foundations to raising walls and ceilings; others to polish the walls and take a brush to paint it, to make electrical installations, to take a broom or a brush, to locate a poster, to take care of the plants, the water ... and, above all, the beauty of sharing the building of ourselves in the joining.

Here in the house we always hear that "We want to build in small what we would like to achieve in a big way".

That is why we welcome the support of those who accompany this effort of constant construction.

Now we are putting our tool shed in order, putting each little thing in its place, trying to organize ourselves in the space. And so we also form and learn.

Press releases

We share two news items that appeared in the newspapers "La Crónica" in Quindío, Colombia, and "El Tiempo" in Cuenca, Ecuador, about library events and intercultural diversity in which the voice of our Network was present through our brother Alfredo:

https://www.cronicadelquindio.com/noticia-noticia_opinion-seccion-opinion-titulo-bibliotecas-y-encuentros-op-19311 

https://www.eltiempo.com.ec/noticias/cultura/7/diversidad-construccion-intercultural 

National Congress of Public Libraries, in Bogotá

Between September 17 and 21, the VI National Congress of Public Libraries took place in Bogotá, Colombia.

Our brother Alfredo Mires Ortiz was invited to give the inaugural lecture and hold meetings and workshops.There were more than 1,300 participants linked to public libraries from all corners of this country. The conference entitled "From librarians: books, reading and community processes", left deep reflections among the attending public.

Alfredo referred to the catastrophes that today, he said, "end up being one: on the one hand, what we could call environmental climate change and, on the other, the terrible mental climate change"; "It is not only the tree that falls," he said, "but the spirit that collapses; it is not only the forest that burns, but the soul that is shaken; it is not only the river that is contaminated, but also the dream that is mutilated."

He called us to the challenge of "reviewing deeply in order to transmute the insanity of destruction and violence, in the midst of the madness to re-read the world and embrace it. To believe in the rarity of the impossible and in the ability to put ourselves in the skin of the other."

He made important interjections from different vantage points, for different audiences: he spoke to the public official, to those who run the libraries and to those who work in them day to day; to those who read and those who encourage others to do so. He asked after what is valued, for what is believed, he questioned those who have forgotten and the colonized; he spoke to the submissive and the uncritical.

He inquired about "the principles we evoke in our work" and asked: "What is the role of the public library with the people? With whom is your obligation: with the building or with the community where the building is located? Put another way: is your commitment to the area of the building or the building of the area? And if so, does the librarian know the people and needs of their community, or are they just customs officers of information and knowledge? What is their promise with their own culture? In short, why and for what is done what is done?

Without reservations he mentioned the tricks of the prevailing system: "Because the hegemonic power is also responsible for rocking us the cradle of forgetfulness and erase the traces of memory. Proof of this may be the history we give through our libraries: the mere fact that the subjects never act as authors, reveals the political manipulation of the past, especially in our continent where, for more than five hundred years, the colonial has forged different forms of internal despotism."

Likewise, Alfredo did not fail to mention his wise teachers, such as Don Antonio Vílchez and Mama Santos.He spoke of the importance of seeking and restoring ties: "Recognizing and distinguishing the marrow of the people could wake us; and re-coupling the bones of our native land is vital to begin walking."

He shared his brilliant idea about librarians: "he who makes books and reading a source so energetic and pleasant that it gives out a scent and attracts those who want to feed themselves to keep flying. (...) inspire the passion of reading books to see the world clearly. Because the action of the librarian is pollinating: it fertilizes both the one who gives and the one who receives. The library is not a cage: it is a space in which the social function is reinvented in a community consecration,"

To end his presentation, he said:

"We can go to the library to learn a thousand careers independent of grades, with emancipated appetite and with the certainty that the lesson is joyful and solidary, regardless of the pecuniary benefit.

That is why we also have to create our own writings. And with greater reason we must look to the lineage that has kept us alive: the invisibility and forbidden knowledge of our peoples; the unburied memory that does not appear in books; the oral tradition of muted mouths; the unsubmissive stories; the perennial memory; the negated knowledge; the stubborn survival of the barefoot letter. In the end, it is not to rescue the past: it is to recover the future."

Lino on the journey

I am Lino Gálvez Blanco, from the El Ahijadero community, in the district of Bambamarca, province of Hualgayoc.

I have known the Rural Libraries for about 28 years, although it has not been continuous; I was a librarian for a time and afterwards I have resumed as coordinator.

For me, reading is learning, the value of self-education, information, training and knowing our reality, what we live, as well as knowing literature.

Having books in the library or going to the library is self-love, self-esteem, training. It gives energy for good behaviour, for its own sake. It is also to value literature and be together with books.

Currently there is a neglect of reading, both for adults and young people. They are caught by too much television and cell phone; that takes their time. For students in schools and colleges there are books, but another thing is cultural, experiential or communal literature. What comes from books for tasks only means to take the books of the State and with that to examine a subject, according to them. But another thing is the experience of Andean literature.

The challenge would be to reach communities and also educational institutions, work with youth to read what is our reality, about what is ours, read those who wrote about Andean nature, our customs, our communities, first of all.

A pleasant visit

Maurizio is a four-year-old boy who visited us a few weeks ago to learn about our Network's premises.

As part of the homework that he has to begin at an early age, he had to go to a library and see how the books are organized; For this reason, his family got in touch with us and, that same afternoon, Maurizio was received at our central base.

His presence encouraged us a lot, not only because he is interested in knowing more about the world of books, but also because of his interest in learning how books are prepared from our Exchange Center to the communities.

Encouraged by our sister Nathalia, Maurizio reviewed the stories and even placed stamps on some copies. Very good, Maurizio volunteer!

This pleasant visit also encourages us to maintain hope: in our country we can all do things better if we encourage the little ones to read and become familiar with reading as early as possible.

Workshop in Masintranca

In the month of August we returned to the Cristo Rey school in Masintranca, in the province of Chota, where a conversation and a workshop on education and reading took place, which our colleague Alfredo offered to students and professors of the institution.

There was a moment to reflect on reading as a tool that stimulates brain development, creativity and divergent thinking, but also the importance of the permanent practice of reading to achieve well-being, happiness and to foster encounters with other ideas, people and universes.

We encourage students to continue reading books: read in different places, read alone, read as a family, read to their grandparents and their siblings.

Always read to understand the world and its reality.

News for the life of the Andes

From the Western world and the many regions colonized by this system, voices arrive that speak of the so-called "sacrificial territories" or spaces converted into deposits of polluting waste in places where ancestral peoples live - that because they are removed from the neighborhoods and powerful sectors and because they have a historical lack of protection by laws and the state, they are victims of the poisoning of water, land, crops and the atmosphere. News loaded with urban soot, accumulation of garbage, extinct species, trees felled, fruits and food spoiled by acid rains, oil spills, fumigation with glyphosate, pests, drought; by the unconsciousness and greed of the powerful, by the apathy and blindness of the people …

We are clear that the West reaches the Andean world in many ways: extractive companies and many others that pollute the water, kill the life and vigour of the lands and their inhabitants. Also, by the extension (via educational system, mass media and social networks, among others) of a way of life made of a modernizing entanglement: predator of the earth, exploiter and carrier of the historical extermination of the connection with nature.

Fortunately, the Andean world still has many planetary lessons to give:

In the Cajamarcan countryside, constructions balanced with nature persist, using materials typical of the region, in accordance with environmental and climatic conditions.

Many of our Andean breeding communities do not enter the devastating circle of consumerism: buying, using, dumping.

They do not use plastic bags because they have their saddlebags, pullos, quipes and guayacas.

In their farms they cultivate and mix the plants that are the daily food on their tables.

Ollucos, ocas, sweet potatoes, corn, potatoes, barley, quinoa, kiwicha, beans, among many other Andean foods survive.

They raise their animals.

They care and revere their puquios (water springs)

They revere and read their sacred mountains.

The South American Andes know of the life and the joy that the agricultural world has, simple and powerful, capable of saying and announcing that there are many paths to walk and retrace; that solidarity always gives us more, that being together will be better than acclaiming individuality, that the premise is to take care of our earth, to live in communion and in connection with all the beings that inhabit all the worlds.

Nathalia Quintero