Grandfather's dream

I remember Don Dionisio Lobato, a farmer from the community of Pallán, in Cajamarca, whose grandfather had told him that, long ago, while working in the fields in the rain, lightning struck near him and knocked him unconscious.

Then, the grandfather dreamed that God was healing his head and giving him a little water and bread to drink. In that room where God was healing him, there were all the sick people on earth, but there were not only humans, there were also all the plants, all the animals and all the stones.

There he understood that everything had life: Don Dionisio's grandfather saw a bloody grain of wheat arrive, he saw potatoes with injured eyes, a corn cob complaining of being lame, a burnt blade of grass, a swallow arrived crying, and a tree also arrived dragging its sorrow.

That was what Don Dionisio's grandfather could now see in the sky, but it was what was happening here on earth.

Then God said to him:

'Now I will heal you and you will leave for a while.

The grandfather woke up remembering everything he had seen in his dreams. And then he advised everyone that we should treat the earth and everything that lives on it with the utmost delicacy, and that we should not throw grains or fruits on the road, because they get run over and burst, and then they go crying to God.

Alfredo Mires Ortiz, in El libro entre los hijos de Atahualpa (The Book Among the Children of Atahualpa)

We thank our coordinators Lino Gálvez, from El Ahijadero, Bambamarca, and Silverio Herrera, from Cutaxi, Chota, for continuing to work the land with all the care it deserves, using their hands and traditional tools, in true partnership with the entire ayllu, because, as we know, in this corner of the world, "everything is a person."

We also thank them for sharing these photos of their dedicated work as dignified farmers and peasants.