Tribute

On Thursday, 16th January, at the headquarters of the Ministry of Culture in Lima, the ceremony of recognition of Meritorious Personality of Culture took place: our brother Alfredo Mires Ortiz was among those who received this tribute.

"The merit, indeed, belongs to the community that has forged this path and this journey," Alfredo tells us.

Congratulations and many hugs!

This is our network

The Network of Rural Libraries of Cajamarca, for nearly 50 years, has been an example of volunteer work. Year after year we welcome those who, from Peru and different parts of the world, come to our communal house to be part of the daily tasks of the Network.

Some come with curiosity and full desire to get to know the experience; others with altruism and generosity without limits; some who share their knowledge and learn with enthusiasm; others in transit, others who from a distance follow us with commitment and affection. Many others, such as our librarian families and members of the central team, who remain in permanence: they are and continue to persist while still believing in the principles that guide their soul and voluntary heart, which is born of the firm decision to act without expecting reward, sowing and working daily to strengthen the bonds of solidarity, mutual help and communitarianism.

The volunteer of the Rural Library Network of Cajamarca does not diminish his joy, his deep aspiration to share and continue growing as family, asayllu, as we are. As the unforgettable Victor Jara says: “what a beautiful thing it is to be a volunteer; building parks for the neighborhood; building bridges, houses and roads; moving ahead with our destiny!”

Finishing school

Aldana lives in the community of Huarrago, in the province of Cutervo. She was born with childhood cerebral palsy. When the people in charge of the Community Program met her in 2013, Aldana was five years old, but she couldn't walk and didn't have much sensitivity in her legs.

Her mother, Angela, is a woman with courage, like her whole family. As soon as we taught her the exercises for her daughter, she set out to do them every day. In addition, she sought information from other places, was always aware of her diet and spent many hours on the improvement of her daughter's condition.

In these nine years, Aldana learned to walk, first with a walker, then with sticks and today she manages to move alone in short stretches. But that is not the only achievement: thanks to the support of many hardworking teachers, Aldana also attended the Kindergarten of her community and in December 2019 she finished primary school.

Doña Ángela is currently the Coordinator of the Network's Community Program and we all learn from her perseverance, strength and decision.

For us, Aldana's story is an example to follow.

2019 - 2020

Discouragement

This is a story that the Peruvian writer Ciro Alegría collected in the communities surrounding the Marañón River. Our partner Alfredo Mires made a brief adaptation for nº 2 of our book “El Domador de Cuentos” (The Tamer of Tales):

They say that one day the devil went out to sell evils throughout the land. At that time, they say, there was not so much variety of evils.

With his sack on his shoulder the devil was on the road, selling.

The evils were in dust and he sold them packaged.

They were all colours of dust, these evils: there was misery and disease, greed, hatred and opulence, ambition - which is very bad when it is not owed- and thus, of all evils there were.

And among those packages was a small and white powder which was the evil of discouragement.

So it was that people were buying from the devil to do evil amongst themselves.

The devil charged a good price for every one, but the little package with white powder they just looked at and nobody paid attention to it:

- What is that then? They asked out of curiosity. And the devil answered:

- It's discouragement.

And people said:

- That is not a good evil! —And they didn't buy it. But they did take several packages of misery, greed as well.

The devil was upset because people did not understand what the evil was worth. When someone was finally encouraged to buy it, they asked:

- How much?

The devil answered:

- So much - it was a very high price, more expensive than all other evils. The people laughed saying:

- What?! For that little package which is not so great an evil you want to charge so much? This devil is very devilish and he wants to deceive us ...

So he sold all the evils, and the little packet nobody wanted to buy it because it was little and the people said that discouragement was not a good evil. But the devil said:

- With this one all, without this none.

Most people laughed thinking that the devil had gone stupid!

Then the devil, with even more anger and laughing with a devilish laugh, said:

- Here you go!" And he threw all the white dust into the wind to spread throughout the world."

And so it was that all evils came to be because that evil is all evils.

You just have to repair to realize: if one is lucky and powerful, but falls discouraged by life, nothing is worth it. And if he is humble and poor, discouragement loses him more later.

This is how the devil did evil to the whole earth, because without discouragement no evil could trap any man.

And it is already installed in the world, with some more and with others less; but it always arrives and no one can really be good, because you cannot resist as you should the strong struggle of the soul and the body that is life.

I hope that discouragement never wields our whole heart.

Health

We share here some fragments –related to health in our communities–, written by our brother Alfredo Mires and that are in the book “Esa luz de más adentro” (That light from within):

If health is the harmony of everything that exists, when there is a disease we must know at what time that harmony was interrupted. It is not the same as prescribing an aspirin.

And if an illness or a disease affects the body, it is absolutely logical that it also affects the spirit or mood. It is not enough to heal the body: it is necessary to heal the mood at the same time.

Our medicine is then a way of understanding the world, an immense set of knowledge and a way of perceiving and knowing symbols and signs, of life and death, of diseases and remedies.

Ignorant and foolish are those who say that these are vulgar methods of "superstitious Indians." This medicine of ours has not gone, and perhaps we have never needed it so much now.

Reading festival

The teaching team at the Educational Institution "Sacred Heart" doesn't stop in the prodigious march to encourage reading!

Last month they held a Reading Festival to gather the spirit to delve into the books.

Admiration and hugs for the participants and the great organizing group!