The day of Here We Are

The mestizo chronicler Garcilaso de la Vega says that when Francisco Pizarro and the priest Valverde asked the Inca Atahualpa to submit, "He was saddened (because they asked him for ...) things so rough, and he groaned: "Atac!”, which means, "Oh, pain," and with that he meant the great pain that he felt.

No wonder: that distressed feeling anticipated the massacre that would unfold a few minutes later.

Ten thousand of us, including children, were assassinated at dusk on 16th November, 1532. In what school, university, or public entity does a single minute of silence be made today for them?

Despite the pains, "Here we are", and from that permanence we honor our grandparents and we celebrate never having succumbed.

We do not fall into the uninformed traps of proclaiming "the meeting" of two worlds, "where it all began", "day of the race" and other such nonsense.

Because the conquest has not ended this pain has continued.

Night of Sun

Last year Antonio Basanta carried out a solidarity exhibition based on the Basanta-Martin collection of more than three thousand figures, which means more than two hundred sets of cribs, with the name "Night of Light".

For this year, Antonio and his people, with the support of our brother Kepa Osoro, return in solidarity with a renewed exhibition: "Night of Sun".

The exhibition will take place at the Reader's House in Madrid, Spain, and will remain open between 18th of November and 8th of January.

A short version of the film "Books and Clouds" will be shown and publications of our Network will be presented, as well as large panels that will explain their project in which they have been working with a dedication which can only boost this extraordinary fraternal spirit.

From here, our congratulations and gratitude together for Antonio and all who accompany him in this initiative.

We remember Ñaupa

The Community Program for the accompaniment of children with projectable capacities is conceived as a Community Based Rehabilitation program.

It means that we do not have a place for the care of these children, Nor staff on the payroll or  expensive equipment or infrastructure for rehabilitation.

Voluntary coordinators are drivers or multipliers of our proposal; The responsibility for the therapy, rehabilitation, integration, inclusion and improvement of the Juanitos - as we affectionately call children with disabilities - is always in the hands of the family and the community.

The main task of our coordinators is to visit the Juanitos in their homes, define - together with the family - the steps to follow and teach the family the exercises so that the children can find an improvement to their situation.

At the outset, this process is slow and very difficult, as families expect our coordinators - as in all other health and rehabilitation facilities - to take full charge of the therapies. It takes an average of one year until families understand and assume their leading role in this joint effort.

In the meantime, our coordinators have to ingeniously work to show the family that something can be achieved. One of the new attempts of the Community Program is to put a poster in each house with three very specific tasks for the family for a year.

For this, Alfredo Mires -creator of the Ñaupas- helped us with a great and inspiring design. Thank you, Alfredo. We are sure that the wonderful company of the Ñaupas will help the families and children of the Community Program a lot.

Palomo and Salem

Two powerful guardians have joined the family at the headquarters of our Network: Palomo and Salem.

We found Palomo badly wounded and thrown out into the street; we had to call the doctor to help us heal him and he even ended up with a piece of tail amputated.

And Salem migrated from the coast, he almost got altitude sickness, but ended up acclimatizing to the rigors of the cold mountain.

Now they are making the house their own, but there is no mouse that appears within kilometers given the presence of these beasts.

Welcome, brothers!

Raising awarness

One of the concerns of the Community Program - for the accompaniment of children with projectable capacities - of the Network is to promote that children with disabilities can attend schools.

This - fundamentally - is because we believe in the need to have spaces of socialization for these children, places outside the house where they can also feel at ease.

Despite the fact that for many years now, and through the Inclusion Law, the schooling of children with disabilities must be guaranteed, the conditions in schools and colleges for these children are not always favorable.

There is a lot of rejection, both from other students and parents and from some teachers. To help reduce this gap, the Community Program coordinators carry out awareness-raising activities in different educational institutions.

To accompany and strengthen this training process, recently - and as an internal edition - we have produced a brochure that brings together concepts and dynamics on this subject, aiming to promote better treatment for people with projectable capacities.

This material is already in circulation, ready to be provided when requested.

Christmas Carols with Sarah

Congratulations to our friends at Sarah's Rural Library Fund and a sincere thank you for their continued efforts of solidarity.

Sarah's Rural Library Fund has been chosen as the benefactor of 'The Big Christmas Wind Orchestra and Choir' event, which will take place in the city of London on 18th December.

Musicians of all ages and abilities will come together for 3 hours to play Christmas Carols during Spitalfields Christmas Market at Bishop's Square. A great way to generate some Christmas Spirit and raise awareness of our efforts.

In the spirit of the song and the embrace, we are and will be there with you.

At the "Ricardo Palma" Book Fair

Mr. José Carlos Alvariño, Director of National Fairs of the Peruvian Chamber of Books, contacted us to invite us to participate in the Ricardo Palma Book Fair.

Our Central Coordination Committee accepted the invitation and authorized our brother and sister Alfredo Mires (co-founder and Executive Advisor of the Network) and Nanci Huamán (Rural Librarian of the community of Liuchucolpa) to travel on behalf of our organization.

The Fair was held from 21^st of October to 6^th of November, in the city of Lima. It is one of the oldest book fairs in America that has become a valuable space for national and international involvement in cultural and bibliographic work.

Aside from the talk about our Network of Rural Libraries, which took place on the night of 29^th of October, our friends participated in interviews and developed a series of contacts.

Here are a couple of respective links:

http://larepublica.pe/impresa/domingo/816748-los-libros-de-mi-tierra

https://www.facebook.com/feriaricardopalma/videos/1070532739739372/

Both Nanci and Alfredo have emphasized the hospitality and appreciation with which they were welcomed by the organizers of the Fair, as well as by the dear friends with whom they met in Lima.

Reading beneath the hat

A few weeks ago we opened three rural libraries in the Celendín area: the first in the Bellavista sector where a teacher, worried about the long hours that many children spend on the streets with nothing to do or waiting their turn for extra classes at school, decided that it would be good to take advantage of those circumstances to encourage reading among children. Mrs. Magalli Limay, librarian, very enthusiastically told us that she will have the library in her house; she, in addition, will take the books to the square known as "El sombrero", a few meters from the school, where she will hold reading circles with children from the sector every afternoon .

The other library is located in the Rosario Bajo area, where we inaugurated with an offering to the land and shared some delicious sweetbread and coffee prepared by the librarian herself. Ms. Consuelo Livaque said that this is a great opportunity for all her neighbors, big and small, to get to know our culture better and to enrich ourselves reading the books of the Network.

Mrs. Zoila Castañeda has been appointed as librarian of the Huasmin sector, where once again our books begin to walk along with the villagers of that sector.

Lynda Sullivan, a friend and volunteer of the Network, encouraged the communities and we accompany every effort.

To these resolute fellow librarians, we welcome you.

Thank you, Ana María

Carla Buscaglia is a friend of the Network for several years and, aside from speading the word about our efforts, on several occasions sought books to send to us.

In this way, Mrs. Ana María Soldi Castellano, cousin of Carla Buscaglia and passionate reader, heard about us.

And being delicate, Ana Maria expressed her willingness to send us some of her books. She passed away on 17th February 2015. Her children followed that breathed wish to continue living through the readings.

Her books are already with us and her desire will be reflected in these community readings.

In her memory: Thank you.

Among elves and shadows

A few nights ago our house was filled with lights, elves and shadows with the presentation of the book "El duende del laberinto" (The elf of the labyrinth), by our brother Alfredo Mires.

Organized as a Tinku (encounter), it began with a gathering and discussion about the work, with the participation of the author and interventions by professors Daniel Saenz and Marcial Abanto.

The interlude was an extraordinary staging of some stories from the book in shadow theater, under the direction of Lupe Sevillano Canals, from the artistic project LuArtica from Spain, along with Rumi and Mara Mires and Rita Mocker, members of the Network.

It was very pleasing to count on the contributions of the participants, thanks to which we shared at the end a rich and generous joijona (long blanket spread on the ground with the contributions of all and for all).

Lupe also sent us this kind comment:

"Taking part in the presentation of "El duende del laberinto" by Alfredo, has been a very pleasant experience. His stories speak softly in our ear so as to reverberate strongly within us.

I have to thank Rumi, Mara and Rita, who have helped me to make the stories in the book fly, giving free rein to the imagination, the body and, above all, hope.

I am conscious of the magical realism of living with the stories, their author and the family of Rural Libraries.

I measure wealth by the value of these meetings."

In Colombia

The Colombian Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Information and Strategic Communication Network of the Agricultural Sector - AGRONET and the Agricultural Documentary Information Network of Colombia - RIDAC, held the Third Congress of Information in the Agricultural Sector "Big data, dissemination and appropriation of knowledge", which took place on 29th and 30^th of September 2016 at the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University in Bogota.

Our brother Alfredo Mires was invited to give a lecture at this event, and then also to the academic conference that was held at the University of La Salle, in the framework of the Institutional Chair "Sewing peacetime", from 1st to 4^th of October, both in Bogota and Yopal - the headquarters of the Utopia Project.

Alfredo presented "Wisdoms and breaths: Culture and agriculture in the experience of the Network of Rural Libraries of Cajamarca"; Here are some excerpts:

"Planting is not a productive function, it is not a mere economic occupation nor a tormenting job: it is a breeder's treat, a vitalizing celebration, a regenerating festival.

It is an implicit risk in the modern concept of resources: reducing the value of the different visions of the universe and objectifying nature can justify the sacrifice of the land on behalf of the dividends. And it is not only reductionism which implies an objectivist vision of the world: it's attitudes and profiles, it defines pedagogies and establishes public policy.

Some time ago I read a graffiti that said: "We see the big guys like that because we see them on our knees". Some years after starting the process of formation of Rural Libraries, we realized that it was not only about providing books, as if their language and content were neutral. By accessing books in the countryside, we automatically consented to the vision that those books reflected. Because basically it is not just about having books and reading, but how this reading could be consistent with the culture and environment to which it adheres.

If the endogenous wisdom is not recognized, the mechanical transfer of foreign content finishes by overruling it. The lack of equivalence of knowledge shows who holds the key to the safe. It results pusillanimous that in many libraries you can find complete encyclopedias of ancient and distant Greek civilization, but not a single brochure on our own portentous and latent culture.

This remembrance is not intended to be a fun evocative concession, a maudlin yearning for our origins or a nostalgic look at bygone times. Honoring the legacy of our grandparents enhances dignity and strengthens the steps we take. We are convinced that at the roots of community culture prevail as frank prophecy the statements that allow the construction of a future of peace, without hunger and with respect.

Otherwise it would mean continuing to inhale the colonizing psalmody with which history is written. Or to be left without living memories, without the dictionary engraved with our survival."

"That the experience is not lost"

Elizabeth Olano Díaz is a teacher and member of the Communications Team at "Sacred Heart" Educative Institute, in Jaen. After participating in our Network's Co-Libris Project, Elizabeth was integrated as a volunteer in the Encyclopedia Campesina Project. Here we share a charming testimony from her:

"Reading is a very important process that allows the reader to put themselves in contact with the author; it is a process in which both interact and share ideas, feelings, attitudes and distinct experiences. It is to find yourself, it is an open door to another world, to new worlds and new cultures. And as a process of interaction, it also enables enrichment, to improve as a person and to know how to get to know others.

Thus the contribution of the Network of Rural Libraries of Cajamarca is very important. In my case it has helped a lot because it has allowed me to get in touch with new people, share new experiences and get to know my own community. Perhaps, because I live in town, I can now learn more about the people from rural areas, all the baggage, the range of experiences that are very rich, and I knew them somewhat because of my mother – as she is from the countryside also, her origin is the countryside - I have got to know many things and this has allowed me to relive what I knew as a child. I have relived it, little by little. Yes, it has helped me a lot.

My challenge is where I work: that the students manage to collect all this wealth, to put themselves in contact especially with the wealth that the people from the countryside have, with their origins: that they do not lose their history, that they do not lose these customs, these experiences. That they manage to collect and transmit to others. And that they value all of this".