Be positive

Several weeks ago, due to the luck of fate, I tested "positive" for Covid19. Because of the situation we live in, I felt a lot of fear, but I was also sure that I would have enough support and help because the people closest to me are good people.

The same day I received encouraging messages from Alfredo, Karina, Rumi, Mara, Zelma, Helen, Nathalia, Gaby, Sara, Abel, Nancy, Angela, Jorge… just to mention a few names from this extensive family of Rural Libraries. I also received oils and other necessary ingredients, from Rita and Karin, to get out of the situation soon.

It is incredible, really, the speed with which friends, brothers and sisters of so many years and places run to help. Instantly I knew that market baskets, healing herbs, recipes for infusions and other medicines learned through experience were arriving at my house. In times of so much uncertainty and fear, it was very nice to know that so many people care about you. I cannot complain about the care I received from the medical staff, but it is very gratifying to receive so much attention from those who are not.

And then I thought of all the people who go through this alone, or are so far away that we can't even run to get them something, like many of our brothers and sisters from communities far from the towns. How will they spend their days of quarantine without having the necessary food, disinfectants or medicines, without a pulse oximeter to control their saturation or a simple thermometer, without adequate environments to isolate themselves and avoid infecting the rest of the family, without help caring for children. So, I appreciate my fortune much more, but the positive is passing me by. I am thinking: how long will we continue to live in this unfair situation?

Lola Paredes

Sensory Integration Workshop

At the beginning of May, through the Basic Special Education Resource Center (CREBE), our sister Rita Mocker offered a virtual workshop to teachers, therapists and parents. The topic was Sensory integration: evidence, difficulties, physiology, diagnosis and therapeutic process.

Sensory integration is an innate and complex process that allows our brain to organize and interpret the information we receive from our senses and the external world.

A child with sensory integration dysfunction has difficulty “filtering” this information, consequently, she cannot decide which stimuli to respond to and which stimuli to ignore and appears disorganized and out of sync with her environment.

At the beginning of the last century, Dr. Jean Ayres researched and developed different exercises and therapy techniques that help overcome these difficulties. Although it is true that the professional application of sensory integration therapies requires a lot of professional experience, a daily and familiar routine of small exercises significantly alleviates the symptoms. Learning these strategies was the intention of this workshop.

Education and frustrations

School work with young children always requires having some resources that allow us to capture their attention and interest, even more so, in the virtual environment that is much more tiring, exhausting and distant.

Personally, I like to read or tell them stories before starting my daily activities, I also like to tell riddles, learn rhymes, among other things. To my surprise, the remote system prevents me from carrying out these activities with the naturalness and spirit with which I do it when I am in front of them. And it is not the same as reading or telling a story walking between the tables, where the children listen attentively, changing the tone of my voice, moving my arms, pretending to run, jump - even shouting together, if necessary, than to do it through a tiny screen where we hardly see heads. We have been experiencing this situation since last year, so it is felt more every day. It is not something that “the body gets used to”, as we say.

It is even worse, because we do not have enough trust with the family member who accompanies the child at home; few families do it in silence, only listening to be attentive to the materials they need or the tasks in which their help is required. In many cases, and this is seen more and more, the companion tends to intervene, draw the child's attention away, make unnecessary comments, or tease.

Once a child's mother called me to tell me to avoid sad stories because her son can't handle them. She advised me to put a happy ending on every story to prevent the children from feeling bad, so as not to hurt them. In more than thirty years of service, I had never heard anything like it. At first I thought that perhaps this mother did it because we are in permanent tension due to the pandemic, but no, the lady explained to me that she never tells sad things to her son, since he was born, she told me. In fact, she has been forced to change the plot and ending of many classic stories to prevent her child from hearing sad words.

Imagine, then, the frustration I feel now, not being able to be as spontaneous as I would like. Not being able to explain to children, taking advantage of a story, that there are people who suffer, that there is death, pain, fighting, envy. That the world is not a completely happy place. That stories are fantasy, imagination, but they are also very close to real life. They serve to explain what happens in people's minds and hearts. For a few weeks now, I've been spending more time telling riddles, rhymes and jokes for children. Until I find a way to overcome these frustrations.

Commoners of the world

 


On behalf of our entire community of the Network, on 31st March we made our little offering to the earth, the sacred mountains and the deceased, at the top of Apu Qayaqpuma, in Cajamarca.

And in various parts of the world, other community members made their offerings simultaneously.

Some brothers and sisters managed to take photos or record videos; others could not have a record, but they were.

Here we share a first installment of this ceremony of ours:

https://youtu.be/rF2eaVfknFI

Those who are yet to make their offer, we would appreciate sending us your photos and videos to join us and continue sharing.

Our channel

On 31st March a new way of communicating with family and friends was launched. Here is our channel, which tells a little about us and because, in addition, its presence encourages and strengthens us in these difficult times:

Channel link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTg8LyGETtYzYhNkO_GraiQ

Writing our history - Cajamarca Rural Libraries Network:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIuvaD924Yc

Writing our history - Cajamarca Rural Libraries Network / sub. English: https://youtu.be/hP2IzzC8Iyw

Writing our history - Cajamarca Rural Libraries Network / sub. deutsch: https://youtu.be/58NmZuObLAM

Alfredo Mires Ortiz - Conversation: Community and Pandemics:

https://youtu.be/wdmR5v_XVxQ

We Are Us - Community Program: https://youtu.be/1dJMw-_jGJc

The Courage to Read - Part 1: https://youtu.be/LcSPUzi3Aiw

The Mountain of the Soul - part 1: https://youtu.be/txlQyGX1sxg

Another voice sings - song / tribute. Rural Libraries of Cajamarca:

https://youtu.be/iLSJkq-Ohwk

50 years of the Network: Offering to the earth from the Apu Qayaqpuma:

https://youtu.be/3Wi5KPEFzx

1971-2021: Tribute to our Network - 4

Everything about her is celebration and reverence. Our Network is the nest and ferment of the ancient and primal sacred vision of the world and existence. Through her we have learned, remembered and never stopped making offerings, cultivating and maintaining altars to our deceased, venerating and thanking the earth for the essential presence of our elders, of our wise women and men who have known how to forge the memory of our Andean people.

The Network is herself the center and point of extension of each practice, each act, each task in the countryside, each reading, each voice and each book as a ceremony, a ritual, a full encounter of all with all.

Tribute to courage and drive - 4

This time a recognition and tribute to our veteran Quechua librarian José Isabel Ayay Valdez and his children, as well as his brothers and the Chilimpampa community. They, from the memory of Mrs. María Santos Valdez, the yach’aqmama of the community, have accompanied with their integrity and courage the journey of the Network; they have offered their immense wisdom and firm presence.

All our thanks and love.

Reading for others

Convened by the CREBE (Basic Special Education Resource Center) of Cajamarca, our brother and sister Alfredo Mires and Nathalia Quintero were present for four virtual sessions in April, conducting the "Reading for others" workshop. This space was the time to meet with teachers and families, to reflect on what, for what, where and how to read for others.

More than a workshop on reading techniques, the Rural Libraries Network emphasizes the importance of critical and ethical reading; reading not only books, but also contexts, places and realities. It addresses the differences between deciphering words and understanding them, as well as the weight, color and sound of words, the various readings and places of reading, among other elements.

Our Virtual Library of the Network (BIVIR) advances

Little by little we are amplifying efforts to enlarge the Virtual Library of the Network, our BIVIR. Through messages on WhatsApp we have shared various reading materials: some to inspire reading, others are short texts that illustrate a topic of interest; some more to read our stories; still others that report on health, education and other topics.

We hope that in these times of social confinement, technological devices will be used as a means to read more and, even better, to share and talk about what has been read.

We thank the librarians, teachers of the Rural Libraries in Educational Institution and friends, for the enthusiasm and commitment to continue reading books, posters, signs and, above all, to read our reality and not forget that we are together.

Soul to the air

Dear Network of Rural Libraries of Cajamarca, the great author and friend of yours, Eduardo Galeano, tells us in his book “Mouths of time:

"According to some ancient traditions, the tree of life grows upside down. The trunk and branches down, the roots up. The crown sinks into the earth, the roots look up to the sky. It does not offer its fruits, but its origin. It does not hide the most endearing, the most vulnerable, underground, but risks it out in the open. It gives its roots, raw, to the winds of the world.

-They are things of life- says the tree of life."

While reading these lines, I had to think about you. Now you are celebrating your 50th anniversary of Rural Libraries: awesome! And for all these decades you have done just that: you lived and offered your origin. You have spread your roots in the sky and have been exposed to winds and storms. Without uprooting. Your vulnerability is also your infinite strength that lives every day in the communities of the Andes and far beyond.

Your fruits are offered through your paths and in the form of your beautiful books, your words, your uniting steps.

You have been a role model, inspiration and guardian of life for these 50 years, and more before as well.

Thank you very much, dear friends, for living with such wisdom and generosity of sharing. And thank you also for your beautiful friendship.

We have known each other for 20 years and I am happy for the many more decades to come, in which you will follow your path, leave traces, stretch your roots and embrace the future.

You taught me and a lot of people so much about "the things of life."

Many congratulations and hugs to you! Have a huge party, everyone together: far or near, we are all going to be there in some way.

Forever,

Kyra Grewe, from Germany

Rosabel

A few days ago we received photos of La Providencia (in Sócota, Cutervo): there was a gathering of bulls and a donkey; animals that were already large, tame and beautiful.

Igor Irigoín, who sent us the photos, has been a coordinator of the Community Program for some years. At this time he accompanied Rosabel, a girl with infantile cerebral palsy and, thanks to Igor's efforts and the family's careful dedication, Rosabel made great progress, both in her motor skills and in her emotional, intellectual and personal development. 

The memories are fond ones - for us and for the family. The naturalness of the mother, the dedication of the father, the spontaneity of Rosabel, the company of the siblings, are always present in our memory.

As part of her rehabilitation, and with the help of friends in Germany, we managed to get Rosabel a donkey. That was necessary for her to be able to mobilize because walking has been difficult for her until now.

When Rosabel grew up, the Community Program applied, as a rehabilitation proposal, to get a bull for Rosabel to breed, care for, and grow.

In the Andean tradition, the acquisition of animals that are left in the care of children and continue growing, is part of daily education and also leads to economic independence.

And so it is: the team of bulls in the photo that Igor sent us is the fruit of Rosabel's upbringing and constitutes part of her personal and family sustenance.

But above all, it is an example of the teachings and wisdom of the countryside.

Community poster

The librarian Lucía Domínguez, from the Public Library of Zamora, in Spain, wrote to us to ask if they could use the image of one of our posters for the Workshops in the celebration of the V Centenary of the Community Movement, for 23rd April, in Castilla and León.

Our brother Alfredo Mires, author of the image and designer of the poster, authorized the case.

We salute the respect shown by Lucía and her team, since we usually find cases of plagiarism and use of our works without mentioning the source or the minimum consultation.

And we celebrate these junctures that trace localisms, distances, times and cerrazones of any kind.

Forever volunteer

A few days ago we got together to celebrate our dear Mara, who continues growing, studying, inventing, encouraging.

Congratulations, Mara, for your presence and persistence as a volunteer for the Network.

By 31st March, our 50th anniversary, Mara already had the youtube channel ready for launch (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTg8LyGETtYzYhNkO_GraiQ)

And, as we say in the countryside, it's turned out beautiful!

Here is our hug.

Together on 31st

On 31st March, at 10:00 a.m., Peru time, we all celebrated together.

We were invited to make - each one in their community - the offering to the earth, our deceased and sacred mountains.

We also connected through Zoom.

Nothing separates us if the earth brings us together.

Network Channel

On 31st March, at 12:00 noon, the YouTube channel of the network was launched:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTg8LyGETtYzYhNkO_GraiQ

In Reasons of the People

On 14th March, our brother Alfredo was invited to a discussion on reading in these times of pandemic.

From valuable questions, Alfredo shared with us his thoughts on reading, books, technology, the promotion of reading in the countryside and the value of community knowledge.

Here are some phrases and ideas:

"The original environment of books has to do with nature."

"To read nature is to have empathy and correlation with her."

“The printed book is a technology that has not gone out of style and has not been replaced by the cell phone. This one has found us without books. The cell phone has not filled the void that existed and is not acquired for the purpose of reading.”

"It is urgent to take up the learning of what has made us possible."

"The book and reading are tools to decolonize the mind and prevent us from stopping to value our own; it slows down the power and interests of hegemonic thought.”

Interview available at:

https://www.facebook.com/razonesdepueblo/videos/779084406302114/