The Book Among the Children of Atahualpa

In April 2021, the National Library of Peru published *The Book Among the Children of Atahualpa*, a collection of six lectures on the Rural Libraries Network delivered by Alfredo Mires between 2008 and 2018 in various locations across Colombia.

Taken together, these lectures offer a broad overview of the Network’s vision, activities, challenges and achievements, highlighting our work in promoting reading as a tool for community identity, development and liberation.

The book also contains Alfredo’s profound reflections on the urgent need for appropriate, high-quality library services, as well as revealing examples of the wisdom that characterised his thinking and his work.

The book *Entre los hijos de Atahualpa* forms part of the *Reading, Libraries and Community* collection, an initiative that seeks to promote the development of critical citizenship through libraries, books and reading. Before he left, Alfredo strongly urged us to study this book. “It’s all there,” he used to say.

The book is also available in PDF format. If you would like to join the community reading initiative and remember Alfredo, you can access it via the following link:

THE BOOK *BETWEEN THE CHILDREN OF ATAHUALPA*: The Experience of the Cajamarca Rural Library Network – Alfredo Mires Ortiz

Qayaqpuma

Come,

ascend into silence,

in deep

silence.

Excerpt from the poem ‘Listening’ by Alfredo Mires Ortiz – Romance of the Mountain

Encouraged by Helen Heery, a friend of the Rural Libraries Network, we climbed Qayaqpuma to give thanks for its protection and to remember the teachings of our comrade Alfredo.

This sacred mountain awakens a world of emotions. There we find not only the memories of our grandparents, but also the marvellous gifts of Mother Nature.

A hummingbird leads the way and we begin our walk amidst achupallas, cacti, chamanas and lloctaras; in short, an immense variety of plants that reveal their beauty to us up there at the very summit. The rocks, as well as being beautiful, convey a sense of protection and strength. The owls keep watch over their home; the ants, spiders and bees bear witness to their tireless labour; and from above, from that marvellous blue sky adorned with white clouds, the chinalindas watch over us.

In Qayaqpuma, you’ll find the peace your heart needs. The mountain welcomes you with the coolness of its breeze; it offers you warmth or shade at just the right moment, makes you feel at home, fills you with its energy, encourages you and shows you the way forward.

Thank you, our brother Alfredo, for leaving us this legacy, which is so valuable to all the people of Cajamarca; and let us trust that those who visit it will do so with responsibility and respect.

A path

If the sun were to shy away this morning,

you can be sure that the shade

will be keen to show its face.

If the river were to dry up just like that,

it would be because the stones in its bed

perhaps wanted to look without the lens of water.

For the night is often

the eve of dawn,

and daybreak heralds

starry nights.

That to live is to grow

which sometimes kills,

and to die is to live

which sometimes grows.

(…)

Alfredo Mires Ortiz

in: How to go to bed undecided and wake up ready to take a risk

Eyes that don't see, heart that suffers

A few weeks ago, due to a problem with my eyesight, I had to put the book I was reading at the time aside. Every day, the pain grew worse; it was a twofold and intense pain: caused by the health problem itself and by the inability to read.

This situation made me realise just how precious this sense is, one that allows us to enjoy reading printed books: moving forward at our own pace, going back a few lines to savour a passage again or to better understand what we’ve just read, or simply highlighting what is becoming most meaningful to us. I tried listening to some audiobooks, but nothing compares to the pleasure of holding a book in your own hands and turning each page with the satisfaction of knowing how much we’ve already read and how much more remains.

Fortunately, there are ailments that pass, even if they leave us a little battered, and which restore our desire to continue enjoying what we love most, such as reading for its own sake.

Lola Paredes

The Magic Barrel

Books are like children; some take a little longer to come into being. After a long wait, a new book from the Network has finally ‘been born’: *The Magic Barrel*, part of the *The Storyteller* series from the Rural Libraries Network of Cajamarca.

This book brings together ten texts from the oral tradition from different parts of the world. It contains stories by well-known authors such as Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm, but also takes us to the Arab, French, English and even Chinese worlds with lesser-known writings. 

The author, Rumi Elías Mires Mocker, “tells his story (…) from the perspective of the archetypes of (Swiss doctor and psychologist) Carl Gustav Jung”, as our friend Grimaldo Rengifo mentions in the foreword to The Magic Barrel. And, indeed, at the end of each story you will find a description of the archetype that predominates in each text. 

The Network presented this new publication as part of our anniversary celebrations on 31 March. Thank you to all our friends who joined us on this occasion.

And thank you, Rumi, for taking us on this journey, for offering us new readings and new adventures, for your contributions and thoughts, for your critical eye and your encouragement, for your consistency and integrity.

The Magic Barrel is on sale at the headquarters of the Rural Libraries Network of Cajamarca.

Gustavo explains

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine from Medellín, Gustavo Oquendo, sent me a photo of a note he had written for a girl at his school. Gustavo is a secondary school teacher, and the girl is a primary school pupil at the same school. Despite her young age, she seems to be an extraordinary reader, and Gustavo wanted to give her one of the Network’s books as a token of recognition and encouragement. For this, he had chosen ‘Mandalas del Ñaupa’, one of our colouring books. 

I was moved not only by the gesture of rewarding this girl, but also by the explanation – so simple and precise – that Gustavo gives about the Rural Libraries Network and the Ñaupa. Here I share it with you:

Dear ___, I am your teacher, Gustavo.

I am sending you this book as a gift for your love of and talent for literature. I hope you fill it with your magic and essence.

A Ñaupa is an imaginary being, a cave painting from the northern highlands of Peru. He is a guardian of the earth, a caretaker of all beings in nature.

The Ñaupa is the symbolic figure of the rural libraries of Cajamarca in northern Peru; these libraries are built by the peasant farmers themselves, where they keep their books filled with legends and stories that recount their own lives and those of all beings in nature. Enjoy it.

With affection and appreciation.

Thank you, dear Gustavo, for sharing your thoughts.

Rita Mocker

A country

How sad is a nation

with no children to defend it,

and one must take care

that it is not sold off piece by piece.

How uncertain is a country where

the land and water are sold off,

and the rightful owners

are ignored, mocked and insulted.

Excerpts from the poem “A country”,

by Alfredo Mires Ortiz,

in: Resuellos

Original in Spanish:

Un país

Qué pena da una nación
sin hijos que la defiendan
y más bien hay que cuidar
que en pedazos no la vendan.

Qué incierto un país en donde
la tierra y agua se venden
y a los legítimos dueños
ignoran, burlan y ofenden.

fragmentos del poema “Un país”,
de Alfredo Mires Ortiz,
en: Resuellos