Reading in the countryside

In April, we welcomed our daughter Samay Nikoll and some of her friends from the National University of Cajamarca to our home. They had come with the sole purpose of learning how our rural libraries in the countryside work.

At the end of March, these friends had attended the 54th anniversary celebration of the Network in Cajamarca. There I was able to talk with them, and that had sparked their interest in the work of Rural Libraries in the countryside.

So we welcomed all these lovely people into our home, thinking about how to explain who we are and what we do in our libraries in the communities. We decided to hold a reading circle with them, but we thought it would be nice to do it in a special place, and we chose the apu El Mirador.

To get there, we had obtained some mules, and one fine morning, we all rode on horses to the apu. There we celebrated our offering to the earth and then held a reading circle with some books we had brought with us.

At lunchtime, we took out our picnic and shared a delicious meal. While we were doing these activities, some locals approached us to ask what we were doing there. So, in passing, we were able to promote our libraries, our books and reading.

Beautiful experiences like this encourage us a lot – and encourage others too.

Sergio Díaz Estela, from Masintranca, Chota.