Reading in Contumazá

Contumazá: the land of intellectuals and good wheat.

One can read this upon entering this district capital, so beautiful, so quiet, so traditional. Here, people still greet, treat the stranger with kindness, and the houses, for the most part, have the charm of yesteryear. 

We went to Contumazá on 16th November, the day of the Here We Are, to commemorate the capture of the Inca Atahualpa in what is now the Plaza de Armas of Cajamarca...and all that came after. We went to participate in a reading meeting organized by our brother and coordinator Ramiro Yglesias. 

When we arrived at the meeting place, we found many students with their teachers, each one with a book of ours in hand, taken from the different Rural Libraries in Educational Institutions (BRIE) that we have in the area. After a brief introduction we were offered a moment to talk about Rural Libraries and then the event began. All morning the students delighted us with stories, parts of essays, texts from different books of ours, poems, their own creations and also some songs about books and reading. It was a real party.

After a delicious lunch we sat down again to evaluate this reading meeting. The students' request was very clear: we want more events like this. So we left with the promise to continue organizing other reading encounters in the coming years. A very beautiful commitment.

Thank you, Contumazá.