Weaving the network

From the distant Medellín, in the mountains of Antioquia, I heard the echoes of a network, the Rural Libraries Network of Cajamarca. I heard the voices from Peru, but above all from the rural areas, from the countryside. This path of promoting reading is not built alone, it is necessary to read to others, to read for others, to fall in love with others, to recount to others. As soon as I heard about this work in Cajamarca, I fantasised about finding out more about what it was all about. So far their peasant library has a great variety of numbers; that is, a great variety of voices, because this has been the work of loving and delicate listening so that these threads of voices are not carried away by the wind, but persist and resist on the pages for them to read, so that others can continue to read them.

That place, back in Cajamarca, sounded somewhat mythical, because one of its main figures, the one who carried the baton for a long time, is one of those beings who are hard to find. An all-rounder, a journeyer, a curious person, a man respectful of his land and his knowledge, a listener, a lover. It would be wrong to say that we did not know Alfredo Mires. That is not true. He decided to go to other lands earlier, probably to continue collecting voices, and so he left us a tremendous team and he exists in each one of them. In the house, in this house, in each of the details that inhabit it, he is there, his spirit is there. It is impossible not to mention him from time to time. At breakfast with Karina who tells me about his good humour. At the table with Lola, who tells me of his love for his neighbourhood's pan de agua "Bring me a pancito de agua", Alfredo used to say to her. Of the respect and admiration with which Don Javier speaks when he mentions the memory of Alfredo, and Rita, his partner in crime, who breathes that tranquillity that comes from having shared so much with him. Alfredo is in the meeting room where the assembly is a political act, with affection, where decisions are taken because they listen to each other. What a tremendous gesture, they listen to each other. And I, who try to make people listen, talk, read and write in every experience, find myself with this enormous display of life.

Our passage through this house will be marked in our skin as one of the most memorable of our journey through the continent. We were able to reach the network and we were able to arrive in the best way, with the desire to share our work. We were given the gift from life, that these people, from whom we have so much to learn, gave us the opportunity to share what we love. For many days Cajamarca was a laboratory for Al son del corazón viajero to experiment and bring to the table games, books, writing, words and dance. We were well received, we were received in the best possible way, with the affection and love that they usually show in every act, in the abundant and delicious food, in making us feel good at every moment, in making us feel part of this team, because that's how we feel them, in the many conversations we had to invoke life from words. 

Infinite admiration will continue for this collective of warriors, dreamers, steadfasts, who continue to believe that it is necessary to keep this house standing, this house that exists and is replicated in each of the libraries where the seed was sown and that now germinate, beautiful, small, with a shelf full of colourful books, with people who, between the work on the land, the hard work on the land, feel it necessary to go and meet with the books. They continue to make circles of words, paying tribute to the earth and respecting the memory of all those who have gone before them. Long live the books, love for the land and affection for the words that do not run out, that do not die.

Jaime Roldán