Ñaupa says!

Courage/ spirit/ cheer up!

Reading and coming together

Here at the headquarters of the Network of Rural Libraries of Cajamarca, for weeks we have been reading as a family to enliven the afternoons, drink coffee, listen and travel. We started with a book by Luis Sepúlveda: ‘An old man who reads love stories’ and with him we went to the Amazon jungle and we were with the Shuar.

Then, by the hand of ‘My name is Gandhi’, we traveled to India with Mahatma or Big Soul; We went with him to London and South Africa, we were at Phoenix Farm and we joined his non-violent struggle; we join forces with his spinning wheel to demonstrate independence; We were in prison and died with him on January 30, 1948.

With Emilio Salgari we were ‘The exiles from Siberia’. We traveled with those who were accused of being nihilists and sentenced to be imprisoned in Siberia. We were among the Cossacks guarding the Tsar, experienced the taranta (rigid car with wheels), the Yenesei river and the Irtich, the chains of the prisoners and countless geographical references and Siberian landscapes, we felt the cold and ice, the fatigue, the danger, hope and love.

Later, through 'Warma Kuyay', by José María Arguedas, we returned to the Andean landscapes of Peru, the Chawala hill, the paca-pacas, the charango, the couplets of love and heartbreak, we saw the abusive power of the landowner Froylán and we understood the meaning and depth of the love of little Ernesto.

We travelled through lots of places through the stories of Eduardo Galeano in his book ‘Women’, texts that highlight the voice and action of comrades who, through their integrity and flight, have made history and process. In Nicaragua, in the Somoza dictatorship, with Luz Marina, the maromera, or Mónica Baltodano, the commander of the Sandinista struggles; in Bogotá with Patricia Ariza, a Colombian artist who "was on the list of those condemned for thinking red and living red"; We toured the Amazon river with the Conlapayaras; with Nanny, leader of the Maroon community in her fight against slavery in Jamaica, and with many other women and many other stories and contexts of panic, war, dictatorships and violence, winding paths of love and freedom.

With the terrible story of Julio Ramón Ribeyro, ‘The Gallinazos sin Plumas’, we lived the story of Pascual, the pig; Grandpa; Pedro the dog and Efraín and Enrique, and we realized, once again, the helplessness and suffering of many who peer around the corners of the rubbish and garbage dumps of today's cities.

For now, we are still on a trip through Germany, with the book 'Krabat and the devil's mill', by Otfried Preussler, among apprentices of black magic, friendship and suspense, we spend our days travelling to other places, to a thousand characters, to many stories and geographies, to many learnings!

Thank you to the Rural Libraries family, because the magic of being here is just being together.

The pandemic and us

I want to tell something, not because I've been asked to say it, but because I am living it directly, I am seeing it with my eyes and mind in our rural area, in our territories, which encompasses everything that exists.

It is the changes that are occurring in a very accelerated way, of the love for the soil, for the production, for loving our farms and our country houses, with no difference in age. All of us who come from the rural area, at least from Bambamarca, are giving importance to our provenance roots, to all our customs. And many of us are recovering what we had badly abandoned or forgotten.

We peasants who, in recent times, were beginning to be more urban –for its attractiveness of fashions, nearby pharmacies or more media services, for not wanting to walk a long distance–, now with the Coronavirus, we are changing how we look at our reality, to love our nature more, and realise that money is not everything, even less - individualism.

In these days we not only talk, but we are with the idea of ​​the importance of minga (collective and voluntary work) in our work, and we talk about exchanging products and putting our agricultural tools into action with our arms. And here's to our fields, our farm, our food, our medicinal plants, and the wisdom our grandparents taught us!

We have reinforced this especially with our youth, who now see the horizons of our farm, even if they are of a small area.

With this I do not want to alarm anyone, but now how many migrants are worried about returning to their place of origin.

I speak this not to boast, but to see in a positive way the problems that we have to face, as we do not know how long it will last, nor the consequences that will come with the changes.

How interesting!

Lino Gálvez Blanco,

Community of El Ahijadero, Bambamarca

Quarantine and crops

Today I found an empty bag of Tolima coffee in our kitchen. Alfredo had left it, as if waiting for something. The coffee was brought to us by a friend and it was very delicious. I looked at the packaging and thought, "This can also be of use."

Since the time quarantine began and we have had to carry all our food on foot, we are more aware of the containers, of reusing and recycling. And that is great learning. Something positive that is emerging from the pandemic!

In our house we have always separated the garbage. We have had our compost for many years, we reuse the water from the shower, we collect the rain water to water the garden. But now we are reinforcing these measures of foresight and care for the land.

I started collecting even the smallest remnants of soap to make liquid soap. Later, Alfredo built - with pieces of wood - a box to store the potatoes; They have been kept there from the beginning of the quarantine, without chopping, without spoiling, without wasting energy and, in addition, there is room to store the sweet potatoes, the corn and everything that fits.

Alfredo also started with vegetable crops; For seedlings, he used recycled plastic containers. Then he planted corn, beans and potatoes in small spaces in our garden.

One day we were wondering what to do with the Tetrapak and we thought that they can be used to plant, for example, lettuces. Today the idea of ​​planting caihua in the coffee container was born. We're already running out of compost soil with so much planting!

And the very idea of ​​sharing the harvest is so pleasant.

As circumstances also encourage us to do more things with our hands, I started knitting socks again. With the scraps I still had at home, I was able to make a pair of multi-colored socks for Mara. She now wants to learn to sew. Let's see how her project of patchwork fabric pants comes along!

And Rumi already has a stamp project, in addition to his caihuas plot…

Rita Mocker

It is good to disinfect the soul

These days it is almost an obligation to think, to talk, to deepen our existence, of how nature - for example - has so much strength ... and some humans believed that they had so much power.

Our duty is to become aware of what we are doing in order to improve the situation and work on being better every day more than yesterday, because the destiny of all depends on our actions and behaviors.

In these times of social distancing, of uncertainty, anxiety, fears, may we do not lack faith and gratitude, for what we are, for what we know and for what we have.

After this stage that we are living, we also continue to value the work and effort of the farmer. And not to forget it for the needs of consumerism in the modern world. That now we have become extremely dependent to survive.

It is sad to have to suffer some calamity or event to just understand how great and valuable it is to live. Let's enjoy the simple things we have: that will make us closer, more natural, more human.

A comunera

From a distance

The quarantine of several weeks that we are living in our country, also implies the suspension of face-to-face work in the school. As an alternative, the Ministry of Education has indefinitely established a distance education system through radio, television and the Internet.

Regardless of what this sudden change implies for teachers, parents and students, both at the organizational level and in the use of technology, other very important concerns arise from this situation.

Confused, after having spent long hours and entire days developing a tedious and, in my opinion, not very functional, curricular programming, the teachers, in their desire to faithfully comply with all that programming, overload their students with activities, tasks, videoconferences and “remote” evaluations, who have gone from social confinement to academic confinement. And their homes, far from being the ideal refuge in this time of uncertainty, many of them have become small schools where far from learning at ease, nerves and despair grow with more speed and risk than the virus itself (an exaggeration, of course!).

On the other hand, many teachers and students begin to miss the affection that motivates both the desire to teach and to learn. The greetings, the smiles, the hugs and all those expressions of gratitude and innocent and sincere affection of the children, help us to start each day's work. Taking a child's hand to help him write a letter that is difficult for him; sitting down to read a book together; reviewing the tasks one by one, speaking softly so that others do not listen to the corrections ...

Interacting in a video conference is not the same as being together in a classroom, playing learning games, having to remember at all times our coexistence agreements (which have also been replaced by icons and microphone shutdowns pre-established in the system). 

Read virtual books, do virtual tasks, organize virtual meetings and many other virtual activities lacking in virtue.

In this time, we spent many hours in front of the computer trying to learn, looking at each other through cameras and talking to each other through microphones, all to try to get closer, but without paying attention to our tired and distressed expressions, turning off the camera for a while and the microphone so that no one on the other side realizes our reluctance when something is not going well for us.

I miss my school very much, I miss going back and listening to the murmur of those children, their laughter, their songs, their complaints, their cries; I already want to leave  'google classroom', 'zoom' and 'meet'. Nothing can replace the presence of people.

Lola

Alberto Vásquez Figueroa: Ebony

Ebony, deep black skin; a group that fought against the slave hunters, a tribute to those who fought for a better world and the desire to make the female voice heard. Ebony as a critic for the violations of the human being, of society and of the life system and the current structure.

A journey through the immense African desert, a political cause, an emotional and passionate motive of a photographer, accompanied by descriptions of the majestic and unfathomable desert landscape in which “the day was of the sun, and the night of the wind. The sun was quiet, but the wind moaned, cried, hooted, sighed."

And, at the same time, the deep presence of the world's miseries: ‘tribal’ wars, extermination and torture, misery, corruption, drug trafficking, inequality, marginalization and, above all, trafficking in human beings who had sadly been turned into merchandise.

An old man who read love novels

This is the title of a novel written by Luis Sepúlveda, who died with the Coronavirus this past April 16.

The protagonists and axes of this wonderful novel are many: the Shuar indigenous people, the immense and impenetrable Amazonia that, despite the settler's machete, always "returned to grow with vengeful vigor"; The idyll as a place of being; the Nangaritza, Zamora, Yacuambi rivers, the El Dorado river port; a dentist with a sonourous name (Rubicundo Loachamín); the novels of love and the wise Antonio José Bolívar Proaño, who well illustrates that intense passion for “appropriating words”, for seeking to understand the plots of those words that are read over and over again.

And, even more, it is the story of a tigrilla whose young were killed by ignorant whites who also mortally wounded the male. She occupies from beginning to end the sound of wisdom, of an ethos or way of life, a trilling, a sound, a silence, a depth that is only seen, felt, hurt and tasted by souls connected to the imperious singing of the jungle.

With beautiful voice and strength, these lines of Luis Sepúlveda came to our hearts. A writer who, a few days after meeting him, through his novel, went to inhabit the world of the dead, the world of the immortals.

Pandemic and radishes

In Libraries we try not to allow ourselves to be bad: always keep the spirit alive, to be in a good mood, to transmit love and solidarity and to encourage others.

This time we are going through is a good time to continue learning and growing: as a person, as a family and as a community.

One of the challenges of the last days was to plant vegetables in all possible spaces. We did it as a family, in minga, and it was a sobering experience. We share with you the first visible and palpable results that do help to lift your spirits.

Love Story

These days, when we communicate with the Network coordinators who live in rural communities, we have received beautiful news about reading. Many coordinators, accustomed to organizing reading circles in their libraries, have adopted the same practice in their families.

This quarantine time invites us to continue reading, to read even more, alone or in a group.

Also here in Cajamarca, we are taking additional time for collective reading. Every afternoon we gather as a family to read. Alfredo began the circle by reading a book by Luis Sepúlveda: An old man who reads love novels, who takes us to the geography of the Shuar to look for a tiger ... but better read it yourselves! It is truly spectacular and exciting.

You may find it here, at this link in the UNESCO World Digital Library, a generous gift to the world: https://www.wdl.org.es

Let's continue reading as a family!

Happy Birthday Rural Libraries!

We received a nice email from our friend Monika Pfändler, from Switzerland, greeting us for our anniversary. Here is a fragment of her message and the poem she dedicated to us:

Before starting work at home, I walk around my town every day, which is called “Speicher”. "Speicher" means "warehouse" and this name originated in the 13th century during the height of the St. Gallen monastery. At that time there was a granary (warehouse) of the monastery under the roof of the village church. On May 15, 1403 the so-called battle of “Vögelinsegg” took place. Peasants from Speicher and surrounding villages became independent from the monastery and city of St. Gallen and formed their own department. "Vögelinsegg" means ‘Little Bird Corner’: it was in this place that I wrote the little poem, accompanied by a singing blackbird.

The day before yesterday I took these two photos on my way so you can envisage where the good wishes for Rural Libraries were born.

With a big hug!

Monika

In these times...

where people are locked away

the flowers wink under the snow and open,

when humans struggle to breathe

mother earth takes a breath.

A blackbird begins to sing

and people sing, from balconies to empty streets.

We can begin to realize what we are:

We are land, water, wind, sun ... at all times.

It must be a special day, a birthday!

Happy birthday to all the people of Rural Libraries

in all your wanderings!

49 years

This March 31 we celebrate 49 years of loving and walking.

It is quarantine time: we are locked up, but we are free.

We do not leave our houses, but the books walk us.

We travel the world reading.

Jaylli!: What greater happiness than to strive tirelessly for being commoners.

Health, blessed land, fertile water, living ancestors, great mountain!

We continue telling and singing.

We cannot applaud ourselves because we are hugging each other.