Akhulli - Debate: Liberating Reading Experiences in the Andes

A few weeks ago, the Simón Bolívar Andean University, from Ecuador, The Andean Oral History Workshop and the Literature Department of the Higher University of  San Andrés of Bolivia, came together to pay tribute to our Network of Rural Libraries of Cajamarca for the 50 years of its walk in the Andean communities of northern Peru, journeys that the great teacher Patricio Guerrero sums up in his song “Corazonando los Libros de Cajamarca”.

In the debate on the initiatives to rescue oral tradition, libraries and reading, various personalities joined to tell about the actions they carry out in their respective towns in Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru. Our brother Alfredo Mires presented the experience of the Network and also recalled that, on this same date, 11th September, 1973, the coup d'état against President Salvador Allende took place in Chile, as well as the arrest of the Chilean singer-songwriter Víctor Jara, who days later was vilely murdered after cutting off his fingers and tongue so that he could not play his guitar nor sing his songs. Alfredo said: We must never forget where we come from, nor the legacy of our teachers, of these peoples who managed to survive everything. Bullets cannot destroy communities.”