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

Well accompanied

In the Rural Libraries Network, as our dear brother Alfredo Mires said, we avoid bureaucracy as much as possible; thus, the processes we follow are minimal, simple and understandable. A clear example is the procedures for opening new libraries when communities request them: a simple request and the signatures of those who want the library in their community; adults, young people, children and the elderly.

It is therefore difficult to understand why state and private institutions are riddled with cumbersome, incomprehensible procedures and documents. It is hard for them to understand and accept the simplicity with which a volunteer works, even more so if he or she is a community member.

Fortunately, in our wanderings, we always find people and organisations that accompany us and help us to clarify many of these procedures, which are legally indispensable.

Since a few months ago, and starting a new administrative period in Rural Libraries, we have been accompanied by the accounting firm Consulcont, in the persons of Rodolfo Urteaga and Monica Narvaez. We would like to thank them for their perseverance, for the pleasant moments we have shared and for the encouragement they give us with their guidance, which helps to strengthen the administrative aspects of our Network.

In times of drought

These are hot times in the city of Medellín, Colombia with temperatures between 29° and 33° degrees Celsius most of the day; with no hopeful sign of a little rain to give some respite to the bountiful amount of little trees and plants that live in this city. 

It was only a few days ago that, while walking through the university, I came across a water fountain that I had never noticed before. When I looked at it more closely I could see that someone had written on it the following sentence: "water will be gold in times of drought".

I couldn't help but be moved and shed a tear, remembering my beloved Cajamarca. Remembering our constant struggle for water, for life, for our people and for justice. 

Almost twelve years have passed since the beginning of the series of mass demonstrations against the "Conga" project, which - as it is still "suspended" to this day - intends to destroy 238 hectares of wetlands and lagoons.  These lagoons and wetlands not only provide water to thousands of families who live from agriculture and livestock farming in the Cajamarca páramo (wetland ecosystem) and, at the same time, feed the entire city of Cajamarca, but are also invaluable for the sustainability of the ecosystem of the area. 

Almost twelve years have passed since, in those protests, I saw my ten-year-old self facing, for the first time in my life, walking through the Plaza de Armas of my birthplace, defending my ideas and those of my people, surrounded by armed police and military, ready to shoot anyone they considered a threat to the "progress and development" of the country.

Today I feel, once again, the streets of my people full of hats and flags, of cries for justice and freedom, of the clamour of the land itself, defending its life through our voices.

And it is no coincidence to hear so many saying "it's too hot", "the weather is not like it used to be", "years ago this weather was rainy weather". It is no coincidence, it is the loud and clear roar of the forests cut down and burned, of the fish left without rivers, of the mountains left without water, of the air that enters our lungs grey and polluted.

But today I also feel hope that it is not true that "only after the last tree is cut down, only after the last river has been poisoned, only after the last fish has been caught, only then will we realise that gold is inedible." 

I wish it were sooner, I wish it were today....

Mara Mires Mocker

Alfredo and the Ñaupa

Alfredo Mires traveled the Apu Qayapuma for several decades, to the point where he knew by heart the location of each painting and the paths to reach them. He walked, went deep into the Apu and spent many nights to investigate in depth the relationship of each drawing with the environment, with the change of light and temperature. He spent entire days there, where our grandparents lived, to observe what happened during the time of rain and drought, because all that influences, he told us, nothing looks the same, everything changes according to the circumstances.

He investigated each space of the "Puma convenor", with the limitations of the Peruvian who dares on his own and whose budget, many times, is only his own spirit. And like this he went also to other places.

When he went to the communities, he would ask the community members who had made the paintings, the sanctuaries, the petroglyphs, the ceramics. The people answered him, he says, that Ñaupa had done all that. For that reason, he also tells that he decided to baptize with the name "Ñaupa", the recurrent character that he found in the callanas, those pieces of ceramics that are found in any sacred place of the Andes, and also in other representations of the Cajamarcan rock art. Based on these investigations, Alfredo completed and recreated El Ñaupa graphically, giving it a social, cultural and political meaning (El Ñaupa T1, p.8).

The Rural Libraries Network has published the books El Ñaupa (volumes 1 and 2), where Alfredo, with creativity and respect for the original drawings, shows us many other characters turned into ñaupítas, with provocative phrases, expressions of solidarity, encouraging reading, among others.

We will always be grateful to Alfredo for bequeathing us such a great cultural wealth.

The dreaming of Ñaupa

I don't dream the empty dreams

of lost paradises:

I dream what the dead

dreamed to be alive.

Alfredo Mires

Together and in good spirits

We were already looking forward to the beginning of February - not because of Carnival, but because the first training meeting of the Community Program was on the horizon. We imagined a special meeting, something more "for the soul", to reposition ourselves, to look inward and to start this new year with courage.

As the people responsible for the Program, it is also our task and our commitment to take care of the caregivers, that is to say, the rural coordinators who accompany the children with projectable capacities and their families in their homes and communities.

In this sense, the visit of Diana Arroyave and Jaime Roldán, from Medellín, Colombia, who are traveling through South America in their travelling house, came as a great surprise. In their project they offer pedagogical experiences in movement, sharing and learning about books, reading, writing and the development of the self through biodance.

Diana and Jaime accompanied us for a whole day - a day that was made short by how entertaining and fun it was to learn new possibilities of reading and writing. We are already looking forward to bringing all the news to the children in the Community Program and thus improving our Reading for Others skills.

At the end of the day, Diana and Jaime took us into the magical world of our inner selves - dancing, smiling and sharing through music, movement and silence.

Thank you, Diana and Jaime, for being and for being with us.

Rita Mocker

Alfredo's footprints

On 23rd February we had a virtual meeting with the teachers of our Rural Libraries in Educational Institutions. Not many people had connected, but the group was select and the conversation flowed.

In our reading circle -by those coincidences that are not coincidences- we read El libro y la madrugada - The book and the dawn (from: Esa luz de más adentro - That light from further inside), the introduction written by Alfredo Mires for Los seres del más acá- The beings from over here, in 1988. I will always be surprised by this "absent presence" of Alfredo in our lives and on our path.

Almost at the end of the meeting we asked teachers for help: to write for our social networks. We know that they, from their schools, have a lot to tell and to share.

Then, teacher Clemencia Paredes sent me a photo via WhatsApp, where they were celebrating the end of the 2023 school year with a joijona, a custom she learned in Rural Libraries. And she sent me this greeting: "Thank you, Rita, for showing us Alfredo's footsteps, to follow the route he traced in life."

A beautiful message to remember the birthday of a wonderful person.

Rita Mocker