Another light it will be

Another light it will be

when it rises

in the dawn

when we rise

Alfredo Mires Ortiz

"The Dreaming of Ñaupa".

With the Awajún in the highlands

Sometimes we can live through extraordinary learning experiences. 

This is what happened to me in mid-April when we met a group of young Awajún from the Moyobamba jungle in Chota to spend a couple of days at high altitude, visiting some of our Rural Libraries.

This exchange was made possible thanks to the decades-long friendship between Grimaldo Rengifo and Alfredo Mires, PRATEC (Andean Project of Peasant Technologies) and the Rural Libraries. Last year, based on our work, PRATEC included the formation of libraries in jungle communities in its work programme.

And there we were, then, with those young people from the jungle, visiting fellow librarians from the Andes - barefoot friends who left their potato fields for a while to explain how their rural library works. Or women from the countryside of Chota, wrapped in their shawls to protect themselves from the rain and the cold of the high altitudes, to organise a reading circle with us.

What impressed me most was the frank interest of the Awajún visitors: their capacity to concentrate, to listen, to ask questions, to compare and share, their effort to understand, to read well, to let our experience penetrate them. I saw them suffer from the relentless climate at almost 4000 m.a.s.l., from the very different food, from trying to understand a language so different from their own, from wanting to communicate their customs and their efforts to protect the Amazon forest and to recover their ancestral traditions. And I saw us laugh, with a happy face, when we realised that we have the same visions, ideals and dreams. 

Thank you for these days, for having been part of this ayllu, of this community.

Rita Mocker

Here we present to you!

How difficult to talk about new books in the Rural Libraries Network without mentioning our dear brother Alfredo Mires! On Friday 14th April, we launched three new publications thanks to the immense legacy he left us.

Living Stones, Living Peoples: Rock Art and Andean Prehistory, a book presented by our brother Abel Vásquez, a volunteer of the Network. He, as a companion of Alfredo in so many of his walks, knows closely the feelings that this book transmits, that filial, affective and transcendent relationship of man with nature that Alfredo perceived and conceived in his tireless walks. Don Abel highlighted "the author's ability to understand and help people understand that the stones where the prints of our grandparents are, have life and inspire our communities".

Pedro Urdemales from Cajamarca. Nathalie Estrada illustrated and presented this valuable gift in which Alfredo introduces us to this mischievous and deceitful character. A Trickster, as we would say. A book to enjoy and to learn much more about the relationship between our culture and other cultures of the world. Nathalie tells us that these stories are not alien to us, they came to our communities, they found a place and many of us grew up listening to them. So it will be in our memory what our grandparents and parents told us about that little donkey that urinated silver coins, or that swindler who drank all the water from the well under the promise of finding a rich cheese, which was nothing more than the reflection of the full moon. These were some of the tricks of Pedro, whom Alfredo Mires called the "weaver of profits".

Being community folk. Don Grimaldo Rengifo, Alfredo's friend of many years and many walks, was the one who presented this book, which is part of our series 'We the Cajamarcans'. Grimaldo points out very clearly and forcefully the content of Ser comuneros and mentions: testimonies, challenges, and the call to affirm the community. How is it that this book reintegrates what has been discussed in the network over the years about the meaning of community. It emphasises the concept of ayllu, the relationship of everything that exists in the community, the relationship of humans with nature and how everything becomes part of the family. It is made clear that the concept of community is much broader than the sense of society.

To find out more about these three new book members of the family, visit us at the Rural Library Network.

Strengthening feelings

Resilience should be more coveted than silver and courage more prized than gold.

Where "every man for himself" thrives, where the me comes first and then the me too, it is extraordinary to see and feel part of this community that seeks to give with reason and without greed: simply to give.

The donation of books by the Network of Rural Libraries of Cajamarca is not limited to the word "donation"; because it is much more: it is effort, it is time, it is love of knowledge and knowledge of life, it is strength of will.

Taking care of the books that will reach the hands of the librarians in the communities, the hands of those who want to know, the hands of the curious; one wonders how many boxes, backpacks and saddlebags these pages containing such rich knowledge will pass through, waiting for their eternal journey.

I respect and admire the work of this association, which is all of its members. Although my vision is still very young, I believe I can see that these human acts are what will keep the sanity of those who still wish to preserve and share.

Love, responsibility and The Little Prince

In Antoine de Saint Exupéry's work, the fox and the rose teach the Little Prince what love and responsibility are. With simple words and an incredible ability to draw examples we learn about the importance of being unique, of spending time together, of "taming" and of rituals.

When we work with children with special conditions we know that these details are fundamental to their development, to their learning and training.

As parents of these children, it is sometimes difficult to clearly focus our efforts and extend our love to their "special needs". That is why, from the Community Programme, we try to accompany parents in this task. Over the years we have developed specific forms and strategies for this accompaniment that we are happy to share with other entities and organisations that work with Rural Libraries. Not having special premises, voluntary work or the programme "Reading for others" are part of these strategies, as well as the concepts of ayllu, care of mother earth or the understanding that, in our Andean culture, "everything is a person". 

On Wednesday, 19th April, the Community Programme Manager of the Rural Libraries Network had the opportunity to collaborate in a workshop for parents of children with disabilities, organised by CREBE: Resource Centre for Special Basic Education, Cajamarca, which took place in the Centre for Special Basic Education, Cajamarca.

You can only see well with the heart.

What is essential is invisible to the eye.

Beginning, middle, end?

Sometimes, on social networks, we find things that are interesting, worrying, dubious, funny, things we can identify with or simply agree with.

Thus, a few days ago, we came across this post (whose author we don't know).

As teachers, from the moment our students begin to develop their text production process, we teach that a narrative text has three moments: beginning, middle and end. And we do this with great insistence, until they manage to internalise them, identify them in the reading of a story and replicate them in their own oral and written productions. But we forget to tell them that this is not the only truth and that, in the process of creation and development of the imagination, there can be many more moments.

Perhaps we, the teachers, should re-read those exquisite Russian stories that have, within the middle, other beginnings, other middles, and more still within what went before. To reread so many other literary works loaded with many beginnings, middles and endings, to delve into our own history and that of our peoples. Then, we will realise that limiting the narrative to a single beginning, a middle and an end is like limiting life itself to a single, boring existence.

From the Network, we always bet on many beginnings, many middles and many endings, in each of our stories and our productions.

Of Books and Clouds in community

On March 16th, after a long break, we opened our beloved main hall at the Network's headquarters to welcome our friends, family and community and enjoy the community screening of the documentary film "Books and Clouds" by our friend Pier Paolo Giarolo. 

This was possible thanks to a great collaborative work with our friends from the APU Cultural Association, with whom we have been mutually encouraging to continue on our way together as a family of the Rural Libraries Network of Cajamarca . 

This was a memorable evening, full of mixed feelings. We shared with joy every scene that evoked our more than 50 years of walking. We were also able to enjoy a moving staging called "The Veil of Elme", performed by the actor Moises Aurazo.

To end this sharing we could not miss our "Joijona", to share with our friends and attendees, who were left with a big smile of gratitude on their faces.

Step by step we are gathering breath and joy, with gratitude, with our books under our arms and the horizon embracing our hearts.

Giving is more than receiving

Thanks to the solidarity and generosity of charitable people.

A few weeks ago, the volunteers of the Network were called upon to receive, select and process new reading material that we received as donations.

We started by opening boxes and browsing through every book, text, writing or sentence that came into our hands.

Thinking of every fellow librarian in the most hidden communities, we were ready to choose, stamp and register the material that could be useful to our brothers and sisters.

Always thinking that the books we would make available to our friends and companions would be those that would carry with them hope, knowledge and information that would contribute to the life of each reader. That would help them to continue dreaming and working for a more just world and to gain knowledge of situations and spaces far from their own. In other words, reading and information that would instruct us but not uproot us, that would fill us without emptying us, that would nourish us without robbing us.

A beautiful experience, also loaded with a lot of responsibility.

Thank you, family of the Rural Library Network of Cajamarca.