I am still trying to understand...

Experiencing first hand, or in person, what is the Rural Libraries, was like lovingly receiving a reading guide from the hands of the villagers.

First from those who meet once or twice a year in their Assembly, and then in the beautiful village of Masintranca, thanks to don Sergio, doña Dona and her daughter Nerly. With their patient and generous company I went through this ‘guide’; not on paper or in classrooms, but through everyday conversations, in meals around the ‘richest’ tables I have ever seen, or in gestures and silences charged with enormous meaning.

The illustrations of this kind of first sketch were the colours of the city, of the sky, of the crops, the tones of voices, the chanting of languages combined around something big that I try to understand with the body, more than with ideas; stories of migrations, of losses and achievements, of hopes and of enormous tasks to be done, to be rethought.

That ‘something big’ that I am still trying to understand is like its guardian hills, its apus, firm and strong in their history, but still in movement, in permanent growth; something that stirs my own roots - as it should be, I think -: the relevance (and belonging) of words, the awareness of the infinite in each one of us, the solitudes and struggles that unite us.

It is curious to call ‘volunteering’ (which we generally associate with ‘giving’ in a top-down way, with a certain paternalistic generosity) an activity that is by no means individual or one-way. My particular encounter with the community members (librarians, coordinators, teachers, students and other volunteers), enlarged and enriched my own notebook of questions, that imaginary notebook that one carries and fills in one's head throughout life, not only to understand others, but also to understand and know oneself. Why is it important that each one is recognised for his or her effort to be in the world? Why are words such a precious gift and at the same time so complex and scarce at certain times? What was that word that, without realising it, changed the course of the relationship with someone we care about? What is it about me that, without even sensing it, I went looking for in other lands? What did I find that was not already within me? Why did I need to meet someone, listen to someone, tell someone, perhaps someone whom, possibly, I will never see again?

All this and more (in addition to the Qayaqpuma earth in my shoes, found with emotion when unpacking, as if I had unwittingly stolen something priceless), all this was given to me in Masintranca and in Cajamarca, with actions and words, and even with expressions on faces that have names and stories. Like mine. Like everyone's.

Orlanda Agudelo Mejía

from El Carmen del Viboral, Colombia