In “Yo maestro”, from Bogotá

In May, the School of Mediators of BibloRed Bogotá, in Colombia, invited our brother Alfredo Mires to their series of talks "Yo, Maestro".

The conversation began with the reading of a poem that Alfredo himself chose: 'Questions from a worker who reads' by Bertolt Brecht. Alfredo said: "I chose this text because it reveals what the Peruvian philosopher Gustavo Gutiérrez calls 'the historical strength of the poor', that extraordinary power of the most humble, of those whom the world considers foolish."

Throughout his entire exhibition he praised the presence of his brothers, sisters and peasant families who make up the great ayllu of the Library Network. Here are some essential phrases:

- Books are tools, not coffins of dead truths or cathedrals of living lies

- The book must emerge from these searches, from this insurgency of the proper word, from this demolition of the imposed silences; from the deconstruction of this colonizing prison within us; of this self-loathing enthroned over the memory of our peoples.

- The book has to be resignified, in its signifiers and concepts, in its uses and in its ways. The book must be a mirror in which we see ourselves revealed as we are.

- The word read comes from légere, which means, in principle, "gather firewood." The librarian may be, in effect, the one who never tires of gathering firewood to light the fire of the learners.

- A library that does not work with orality, cannot pride itself on being a library. I always say that it is a shame that complete collections of Greek thought can be found in libraries, but not a printed page of our own ideas.

- This virus comes to demonstrate to us - so clever us humans - that idolized capital, that highbrow progress, that godly success and irrepressible consumer gluttony, were the fastest way to the extinction of the human species.

- Now it turns out that old books were the ones which had to teach us the most; And that the old men free from complicit theories were the ones who knew the most!

- Today, just as pharmacology seeks a vaccine against the virus, it is up to libraries to reinvent themselves in the search for knowledge that immunizes us against stupidity and disdain for life itself.

- The synonym of educator should be apprentice: to be a good teacher you must have an immense openness to learn and unlearn. And that implies an invaluable dose of humility, coherence and consequence. No one is capable of teaching if they do not have enough modesty to learn.

Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qts7XFihdQc&t=3168s

Presentation links provided by the organizers of the discussion:

Eduardo Galeano's text about Alfredo Mires: https://n9.cl/g27p

"The infinite journeys of a librarian", interview by Daniel Canosa: https://n9.cl/iarnq 

"Opening conference at the VI National Congress of Public Libraries": https://n9.cl/r3wk

Born of you

Agriculture plays a vital role in the food security of a household because it allows us to have our own food availability and also for producers to generate their own income. This even facilitates their stability and access to sufficient and nutritious food, so that our energy needs to lead an active and healthy life are met.

Perhaps it is time to pay more attention to our farm. No matter how urban our life may become: we will always consider agriculture, this main component of our subsistence. Let us take advantage of the wonders that nature gives us, but let us not exploit. We should always be grateful for the goodness of the earth.

At the fifth webinar

On June 18, the Institute of Higher Pedagogical Education extended the invitation to Alfredo Mires Ortiz to talk, in a virtual meeting, about liberating reading and writing. The questions asked revolved around what the Covid-19 pandemic has exposed in educational processes; what should the school do to promote liberating reading and what are the balances in relation to the educational system and the lessons that a peasant institution like the Cajamarca Rural Libraries Network can offer. The responses were forceful:

"In this time of the pandemic, what is evident, what has been evidenced, is an almost global inability of the population to read reality (...) If we elevate that to the educational processes of the country, we can see that the only thing that has been done is to adapt the formal learning of the school (with the same contents) to the available technology. Virtual communication has become the method for learning. No one thought to reinvent themselves. The question is, are we willing to reinvent ourselves?

“We have to accept that the moral reserve of our countries is in those who never went to school. Those who do not have degrees, who were not in that unfair competition system, those who were not showing that they knew so much."

“Rural Libraries has evidenced the profound social, human, moral and historical baggage of the populations that did not have the trauma of competition at school because they have the ability to read reality. Those populations are genuine without being infatuated. Rural Libraries has proven and demonstrated that dignity and respect are not about money, power, or an academic degree; we must respect them”.

“If we do not admit that there is a problem (with today's education) it is almost impossible to remedy it. Are we able to admit it? Are we ready to change?”

“Education got it wrong or never took the path led by those who go through school to read texts and contexts; much less prepare to perceive the heartbeat of Nature, deepen the capacity to nourish; see and feel the regenerating magic of Nature”.

An invitation to the maze

The country without ears

“At the time of the mutations, nature realized that human beings were not listening.
This is how the Country without ears was born, where only those with hearts could be heard”(p.32)
               
Money

“There was once a town that did not know money.
From the day she met it, she was never a town again” (p.46)

The machine

“There was once a man who lived inside a machine.
That man thought, ate, felt, slept, worked and lived as the machine wanted.
But the man always said:
"I have invented, designed, and built this machine. This machine is mine." (p.85)

Gratitude and respect

My maternal family is from the countryside and since I was little I have accompanied my grandmother and my aunts to weed the farm, to water and to harvest. Also in my house we had a garden and taking care of it was everyone's job.

In this time of the pandemic, already at our house here, in Cajamarca, we have started to plant and breed: lettuces, beets, carrots, squash, corn, beans and potatoes ... and for a couple of weeks we have been accompanied by two beautiful chickens and a rooster.

I have always had a lot of respect for the people who work the farm or raise their animals: their day to day is hard, their work is strong, and it is they who support the lives of thousands of people, from a whole country, from all over the world.

Now, with the little experience gained, I have greater admiration, consideration and appreciation for those who feed us with the sweat of their forehead and the work of their hands.

But I am also beginning to understand the satisfaction our brothers and sisters from the country feel when they see the first leaves of their potatoes sprouting or the bean sprouts entangling in the tender corn seedlings; I am very grateful to see our chickens scratching in the compost ... and the joy of picking up one of their eggs is immense. Learning that is a joy, a joy that makes us very happy.

Rita Mocker, from Cajamarca

Encouraging to read

The health emergency that we are experiencing has not been able to stop our desire to motivate our students to read, beyond the compulsory readings, that they carry out to carry out the tasks.

We decided to take advantage of free moments at home, proposing different activities that will connect them with a variety of books and texts.

Today we are in the motivation and registration phase and we already have a group of twenty-four students from different grades who have registered and are part of the WhatsApp reading group, where they have been asked to share a phrase, an expression, a paragraph or an opinion. of what they are reading freely.

Several are already participating. We contribute by strengthening interaction and also contributing what we have been reading. It is a delicious word soup, ready to feed our hearts and minds.

On Monday June 15th we had our first virtual activity, a recital, so that all participants enjoy reading and listening to the beautiful creations of different authors.

The team is excited and, like our dear students, also selecting the poem we will share.

Elizabeth Olano, from Jaén.

Reading reality

Our brother Alfredo Mires Ortiz has been presenting - during this time of confinement - on various platforms to which he has been invited.

For almost 50 years now, a proposal has been brewing in the network, from the communities and for the communities, publishing their own books, respecting and revaluing ancient wisdom, and Alfredo humbly tells us: “We are fighting tirelessly so that a fair society is possible”, although 50 years is little because the process is hard. And he also tells us that dignity and respect have nothing to do with money, power or titles:

- I wish we were able to do an examination of national conscience.

- Why the name of the platform “home learning”? Does it mean that we did not learn at home before?

- What are we teaching and what are we learning?

- What kind of human am I going to contribute to forming today?

- Reading and writing are indispensable conditions for the formation of human beings.

- The moral reserve of our countries is surely in those who never went to school.

- Teachers must admit that there is a problem and recognize its characteristics.

Thank you, Alfredo, for sharing your thoughts with us.

Returning to hometowns

Since the state of emergency began in our country, we have very often seen news of people and even entire families desperate to leave the big cities, mainly the coast (even more so in Lima), to return to their places of origin, to their people, to their community.

The reasons: there is no more work, there is a lot of contagion, there is no where to live, etc. The strange thing is that these people are not heard to say that they want to return to their hometown because they miss the farm, the humble, simple, healthy life. It seems that only the fact of not having more cash, work or a rented house, is the only reason, because not even the fear of contagion seems to be so great: many people have even been infected along the way.

It is known that many people walked for weeks; others received humanitarian aid. The government has invested large sums in tests for the virus, in shelters and food to support these families, these people, during the mandatory quarantine that they had to keep when they arrived in their villages.

And that's where the concern comes from, not knowing if when all this calms down or ends, people will continue to make their way back, or if those who managed to get to their towns and communities will stay there to work the farm, to help the parents and grandparents; or if, on the contrary, as soon as they manage to get together enough money for the journey they will return to the coast, to the big cities, to suffering in exchange for some Soles.

But the people are generous, the community receives, patiently awaiting the return of the ones who left. And it will always be waiting.

Those of us who live in the city, who go to the farm only to visit, we are missing that peace of the small town, the fresh air, the silence. We miss the good, hard-working people, who leave for the farm very early and return carrying the blessed fruit of the earth. Those clean places we can't go back to now.

I am looking forward to going to Mama Yola's farm! I really want to go to Ichocán!

Lola Paredes

When a library burns

Recently I was listening to brother Alfredo as he reminded us: "When an old man dies, a library burns", the following story occurred to me:

In a nearby town the children lived out their stories listening to their grandfather. Every afternoon they sat around the bench where he used to sit watching the sunset. One day Grandpa was no longer there; the children looked for him and asked for him: “He has become ill; it is very serious ”, they were told.

The dreams, joy and life of the children also suffered. Everything was silence and monotony. That bench was empty, though full of loneliness, missing that old man.

That man with a live gaze and who shone when telling his stories would no longer be there: the children felt that their library had burned down.

Marleny Olivera, from San Ignacio

About children's literature

At the beginning of June, the Regional Directorate of Education of Cajamarca invited our brother Alfredo Mires Ortiz to speak with their teachers and coordinators about children's literature and Rural Libraries.

As always, Alfredo shared deep reflections on education in general and, in this particular case, on the so-called 'infantil literature’.

For him, this type of literature is commonly made by adults who do not measure up to the genius of children, so they create works with paint and color in a desire for childhood without thinking much about the meaning of the content. This being the case, children do not want to read children's literature, which is "saturated with adulthood or declining childhood".

Let us exhort everyday language, be ready to inspire reading and preserve the "breastfeeding story" for children and family, claim the healthy pride in that which is ours: respect for the land, animals, plants, seeds, because the enunciation of the word strengthens the connections and ties; words have the strength and color to see and know our own way of seeing and being in the world.