Renewing our spirits

On 21st November, we met with readers, librarians and coordinators from our libraries at the Casa del Maestro in Bambamarca. Our coordinators Humberto Huamán Lara and Lino Gálvez had organised and managed this meeting. The intention was to bring together those responsible for the Network in this area to encourage them to revive our libraries in the local rural communities.

We began with a delicious lunch and a small offering to the earth. Then, our General Coordinator, Javier Huamán Lara, led us in a reflection on 16th November, the day of Atahualpa's capture and the massacre of more than ten thousand Indians in the Plaza de Armas of Cajamarca on that same day in 1532.

We continued the afternoon with the presentation of the new proposal for the Libraries Network in the current context, and the librarians and coordinators present shared their ideas and projects to join this plan starting next year. A young reader delighted us by reading El burro astrónomo (The Astronomer Donkey) from our book El shingo enamorao y otros cuentos (The Shingo in Love and Other Stories). We concluded with a reading circle of Un país (A Country), a poem written by our founder Alfredo Mires, a text that leads us towards next year's elections.

It was very good to meet and renew our enthusiasm to continue together in this community purpose. Thank you to everyone present for your effort and courage to keep going.

Books, light, respect and much more

A dynamic that is cultivated in our network and has grown stronger over the years, thanks to the experience of our elders and the openness and poise of those who still have much to learn; our Reading Circles.

Getting together in these circles is a unique experience because we all participate: children, young people and adults. Some read and others just listen. The important thing is to get together, accompany each other, support each other, learn from each other, each at our own pace and in our own style. We are all important.

We enjoy not only reading the content of a book, but in some cases, when the situation allows and depending on the place and time, following the teachings of our grandparents, we read the movement of the clouds, the setting sun, the flight of birds, the direction of the wind, the movement of the stars, the location of the moon and more. Everything can be read.

Reading circles are spaces filled with books, light, respect, memories, and learning.

Pure emotion

At the end of November, we met with the children and families of the Community Programme for the support of children with projectable abilities in El Tambo, Bambamarca.

Arriving in a community and seeing the children again after several months is always a great joy. I see how they have progressed in their development, how they socialise more, how they have learned to play with their classmates and friends. I see that they can now lift their heads or that they have learned to walk, that they know how to put on their shoes, wash their hands or button their shirts. It is pure joy and proof that what we are doing is worthwhile.

But what moves me the most and almost breaks my heart is when a child arrives and comes running towards me to give me a hug. That is love personified. My most precious gift.

Rita Mocker

Responsible for the Community Programme

Our Lady of Tenderness

I would like to share with you an excerpt from the story Our Lady of Tenderness, which speaks to us of unconditional love, pain, and faith in times of adversity, leading us to find peace, redemption, and the true meaning and purpose of our lives.  ...

"They called her La Brava (The Brave) because she was so difficult to find. That mountain was her temple. She was the only Virgin who did not have a church, for whom no priest celebrated Mass and for whom no pyrotechnician set off fireworks. She was the only one who did not have a feast day.

They said that the image was only two centimetres tall, that it had been carved from hummingbird bones, that her crown was made of alfalfa flowers, that her clothes were made of tender queñual leaves and her cape of chrysalis shells. They said that her eyes were made of mountain water, that her hands were carnation petals and her mouth was a ruby splinter carved from the gizzard of a wood pigeon.

She was a miracle of tenderness. They said she was the purest. They called her La Brava: that was and always had been Our Lady of Tenderness..."

I invite you to read the full story in the book El hombre que curaba (The Man Who Healed) by Alfredo Mires Ortiz. Edited and published by the Rural Libraries Network of Cajamarca.

The land within

No questions asked,

and yet,

with the always

and the nevers,

here we are.

Land of ours,

they couldn't

separate us.

Alfredo Mires

In: How to lie down indecisive...

Original in Spanish:

Tierra adentro

(13)

Sin preguntas
y sin embargo
con los siempres
y los jamases
aquí estamos
Tierra nuestra
no pudieron
separarnos.

Alfredo Mires
En: Como acostarse indeciso…

The Ñaupa Fair

This year, we celebrated our first Ñaupa Fair, a traditional Christmas market featuring authentic, handmade products that are clean, carefully crafted and of high quality.

For us, it's not just about buying and selling, because that's what any business does. We do it to have the opportunity to join forces, offer spaces for creativity and honest entrepreneurship, get to know each other rather than compete, and, of course, help each other in solidarity.

We joined hands. Hands that weave, embroider, and sweeten life; hands that prepare alternative medicine... all those hands united in a single market, under the pretext of Christmas.

We did not offer a Black Friday, but we guaranteed a Friday and Saturday full of colours, delicious flavours, exquisite smells, and a lot of fraternity.

Chocolate, love and work

Cocoa is one of the many products of American origin that Europeans integrated into their gastronomic culture during the colonial period. Interestingly, one of its most "simple" derivatives (hot chocolate) was already a ritual drink in pre-Hispanic times, whose preparation was perfected by the Olmec, Mayan and Aztec cultures.

It seems that this "ritual use" has been carried over to the Christmas season in modern times (and probably since the 19th century). Everyone enjoys a delicious cup every 25th of December... and all of Latin America produces what is known as "drinking chocolate".

But while the commercialism of the December holidays urges us to buy Winter's or Cusco brand bars, we all know that the best chocolate is the one prepared with effort and love.

In a corner of the Central Market in Celendín (capital of the Cajamarcan province of the same name), in a wooden and green brass cart, Mrs. Margarita Alcántara sells bars of handmade chocolate prepared with effort and love, and if it is cold, she warms your soul and heart by offering you a cup.

In a world as "globalised" as this one, initiatives such as those of Doña Margarita are what truly sustain our country's economy and culture. Chocolate made with love and hard work tastes better and warms you better than the chocolate that comes out of large factories and enriches giant companies.

Rumi Mires