For World Water Day

At the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the 22nd March was proposed as World Water Day to "raise awareness of the vital importance of water resources in sustainable development".

In Rural Libraries we have another way of looking at water. From the Andean and Amazonian cosmovision, water, earth and sky are a WHOLE that gives life to all beings, including us. For us, everything that exists is related. Everything lives. This is also what Alfredo Mires tells us in the book El derecho a la esencia: niños, derechos, comunidad y torcidos (The right to the essence: children, rights, community and the 'twisted').

The nature of rights

Some time ago we were talking about the spinning of wool and I asked how the torteros were made (1).

One of our friends said:

- In my area some of us use luntas (2). We put the lunta in the shuqsho (3) and with that the ladies spin. The lunta is the aerial fruit of the potato. We use lunta.

Another companion who was there said to him:

- But in your area some people must be ignorant, then.

- Why? -said the first one. We do use luntas.

- Yes, well, that's why they are ignorant. Or would you like your mother or your sister to be kept dancing, going round and round all day long? You wouldn't like it. That's the way the potato doesn't like it either. How can it be that the little potato is kept turning around, spinning, getting dizzy there?

For us nature is not a thing, potatoes are people too. Everything is a person. In the rural areas, food is alive, like everything else. When we leave the tuzas (5), the corn kernels, we should not leave them just thrown away; they should not run the risk of being run over by the animals because, if so, the maize resents it, the grains resent it. 

Even the elders say that when they weigh the food, the peas, the lentils, they resent it. And they go away. The seed becomes absent, it no longer grows. That is what the elders have taught us since ancient times (6). So, this is a relationship of respect with nature.

If we say that the human being has rights, then, where is the rights of the earth, and the rights of water, not the right of the human being to water, but the rights of water itself! Water has the right not to be polluted. It is not that the human only has the right to a healthy environment; the environment also has the right to a healthy human! The earth has the right to be healthy!

The way of perceiving respect and life in the countryside is different.

1 tortero: counterweight, usually made of stone, placed on the spindle to spin sheep's wool.

2 lunta: aerial fruit of the potato.

3 shuqsho: spindle. Stick for spinning wool and twisting the thread.

4 toíto: all of it.

5 tuza: corn crown. Zuro: corn kernel.

6 antiguas: the ancients, ancestors, also called "gentiles".

All'para paguikun: offering to the earth

This little book is great, it is grandiose. In its scarce 30 pages it manages to synthesize a whole "cosmovivencia", a relational ontology centered in a deep and beautiful ritual that, by the way, we invite all people to incorporate it in their sacred habits because it is "a very ancient ceremony to render our affection to the earth, to the apus or sacred mountains and to our deceased" because "the world is a sanctuary" and we cannot forget what we are, where we are, what we defend and where we return to.

Rural Libraries in Educational Institutions: BRIE

The Rural Libraries in Educational Institution -BRIE- constitute a group of libraries, devised by our always remembered Alfredo Mires Ortiz, who, accompanying the educational communities of schools, colleges and institutes of higher education forged the presence of the books of the Network in the children, young people and families. We praise the work of the teachers, mostly women, who encourage reading and so lovingly carry this legacy with the books on earth.

The path of the prophet

A man found the footprints of the prophet in the sand and began to follow him.

Further on he met another man coming in the opposite direction:

- What are you doing," he asked him, "Don't you know that the prophet is going this way?"

- "I don't want to follow him", answered the other man, "I want to know where he came from."

Alfredo Mires Ortiz

In: El duende del laberinto

We are still: part three

On how the Ñaupa got its name and the recreation of ancient images:

On many occasions, when I asked in the people in the rural areas who had made the cave paintings, petroglyphs, sanctuaries or ceramics, the older villagers would answer: "That was done by the Ñaupa". In Quechua, the Ñaupa is the ancient one, the oldest, the grandfather of the oldest. That is why I decided to give this name to the character and the graphic recreation I have carried out.

This process of recreation tries to be extremely respectful of the original plastic art. And it aims to highlight the extraordinary heritage that our elders left us, as well as to emphasise the identity of our peoples in their constant struggle to protect nature and to champion their dignity.

Although we published the first iconographic reproductions in 1991, these recreations began to see the light of day in 2011, accompanying the edition of 'The Letter from the Seattle Indian Chief' that we worked on in a version for children. From that experience we saw that it was possible to vivify the symbols that our ancestors had left us in order to bring us together.

Alfredo Mires Ortiz

in: El Ñaupa

Doña Paca and the family threads of our Network

On 20 February 2024, Doña Paca Roncal passed away in the city of Trujillo. Doña Paca, wife of Don Miguel Rodríguez, a very close friend of Alfredo, and her son Miguel, coordinator of the Rural Library at the Pingo-Cajabamba Educational Institution, have always been very close to us. The Rodríguez Roncal family is a reference point for culture, books, rock art and a lot of love. Our deep condolences, we accompany them from the heart. We will always miss the kind and affectionate presence of Doña Paca. "Hugs from many arms".

Grateful, always grateful

As students and teachers of the Sucse Secondary School in the community of Sucse, district of Sócota, motivated by the generosity of God, our apus, our mamapacha - who sustain us and give us food - we decided to pay a beautiful tribute to water on its day, knowing that Water Day is our day because of the importance it has in our lives.

We gathered in the courtyard of the Institution and made an offering to the earth, with a reading and a brief reflection on the treatment of water, by teachers Heli Tenorio and Abel Vasquez, and, to end the ritual, we toasted with a glass of water and the delivery of books to all students.