A day like today...

On a day like today, on 8th July more than twenty years ago, Juan Medcalf, founder of the Network of Rural Libraries of Cajamarca, died.

Juan came to Peru to join the path of the many who followed the calls of Liberation Theology, volunteers willing to live - in flesh and blood - the option for the poor. Juan, a committed and authentic man, came to live in Bellavista, a small community in Llaucán, Bambamarca, in a humble little house in the countryside. It was there that he began to lend his first books to his neighbours and to understand the magnitude of life in the countryside. It was there that the Network was born in the heart of a priest.

It has been many years since Juan is no longer with us. I imagine him now, there, together with Alfredo, talking, laughing, remembering us, dreaming and longing for a glass of rum. May God continue to enjoy them.

Rita Mocker