Everyone - wake up!

 

50 years with books in the earth

We celebrate another year with books in the earth, another year encouraging and affirming the culture of our communities, with great enthusiasm to spread stories and testimonies. And with a lot of love to belong to this community that encourages reading. That is vitality for us.

With great enthusiasm we share what is ours.

Congratulations to those who made it possible.

Virtual meeting with the BRIE

On 13th March, we were fortunate to meet - remotely - with the teacher-coordinators of the Rural Libraries in Educational Institutions (BRIE).

How nice to talk, to see each other again and to know that, despite the distance, we continue together, linked by that essential thread of affection, appreciation, commitment to our work as librarians.

The party has begun

Our Network of Rural Libraries has been forged little by little, without much noise. And so, almost without realizing it, we have reached 50 years.

We would have liked to celebrate with a great Assembly, going out to the Apu Qayaqpuma, carrying books and cold cuts to make the offering to our mother earth, listening to the stories of our elders, laughing with the theatre plays we had prepared, singing, learning in the circles of reading around the fire, with a bit of dancing as well and, like good community members, enjoying our delicious food.

There will not be a celebration of that kind, but we are together. Because the enthusiasm continues, the desire continues; because we miss each other, because we remember each other. And everyone in their community will share their anecdotes and enjoy the books, posters and almanacs that have arrived to advise that the party has already begun.

1971-2021: Tribute to our Network - 2

In its bosom our memories and ancestors are sheltered. In its archives is the essence of everyone's voices: elders, women, children. In the Assemblies there is the heart of our entire family. In its books the names and stories of our people are captured. In its headquarters are the hands of the commoners. The Network is in each community, in each dear house with its books, in each reading circle, in each carefully worked farm, in each lagoon, in each apu, in each field and river, in the pumas, foxes and ulluays. In each hummingbird, in each flower, in each soul and heart of this great embracing ayllu.

We party and celebrate

Alfredo had his birthday and for us, the family of the Rural Libraries Network, it is a reason to party and celebrate.

We celebrated his day with sincere affection, although this year we had to do it through virtual greetings and hugs from a distance; but, yes, with a good green broth for breakfast and a beautiful and tasty Ñaupa cake.

And we celebrate the "Makings" of him, as he himself tells us in his book "Resuellos", the makings thanks to which he is who he is:

My chest is made of fertile land

Fertilized with memories

and I am seeded with the future

with the seeds of heaven.

The earth does her part

and water her daily ration

to form the mortar

of this life of solidarity.

In this family of the Network we give thanks for the "workings" with which Alfredo was forged: thanks to life, to water, to earth, to memories. And thank you also for all the wonderful beings that spring from that workmanship: solidarity, love for others, desires for justice. Thank you for his tenderness and also for his firmness, for his passion and his love of reading. But above all, thank you for him being himself and sharing himself with all of us.

Lola Paredes

And we are getting ready

There is not long left now 'til we celebrate 50 years of the Network, and although we will not be able to meet due to the complicated situation we are going through, we are all preparing with something: with readings, with stories, with books, telling anecdotes, encouraging each other with calls. We are waiting more than ever for the birth of new books, the arrival of new materials and thus we share this poster, which is already going out to the library communities.