To educate the scorpian

In late June and early July, the First International and Ninth National Congress of Bilingual Intercultural Education “José María Arguedas” was held in Cajamarca; an event to which our colleague Alfredo Mires was invited to give a talk.

We share here the beginning of the text which Alfredo presented under the title “To educate the scorpion: Interculturality, cosmovivencia¹, and community education”:

There is an old African tale which tells the story of what happened between a spider and a scorpion.  They say a scorpion needed to cross a river, but he didn’t know how to do it and he was very scared of drowning.  So, when he saw the spider swimming he immediately said:

“Carry me on your back.”

“Me carry you on my back?” replied the spider. “Forget it!  I know you: if I carry you on my back you’re going to sting me and you’re going to kill me!”

“Please, spidey!” insisted the scorpion, becoming very friendly.  “I really need to cross the river”

“No way!” said the spider. “I like to keep my distance from you”

“How can you be so illogical?” the scorpion replied.  “Don’t you realise that if I sting you, you will sink in the water and, as I can’t swim, I’ll sink too and I’ll drown with you?”

And so they carried on arguing for some time until in the end the scorpion won.  The spider, convinced, carried the scorpion on his back and they began to cross.  When they were in the middle of the big river, suddenly, the scorpion raised his tail and jabbed his sting into the spider’s back.  The spider felt the fatal venom spreading throughout his body and, while he began to sink with the scorpion on top of him, he managed to shout out:

“But what have you done? I don’t understand, I trusted you.  How could you do this to us?”

“I couldn’t help it”, replied the scorpion before disappearing in the water.  “That is my nature.”

When they asked me to approach the subject of spirituality and world view in an ecological and community education, I had to remind myself of this story and ask myself: what is the nature of the education in which we have developed and with which we continue developed and developing?  What kind of people forges the education which is given?  Are the classes which graduate from educational establishments supportive, critical, respectful, bibliophilic and honourable?  Or are we creating generations which are lazy, discourteous, materialistic, alienable, compulsive gamblers?

Rather, what nature do we come from and what will the future we are creating be like?  What back are we contributing to poison whilst trying to cross this river muddied by the devastation of nature?  What model do the guidelines give us, and which is the proportionality between technological obesity and ethical malnutrition or ecological atrophy?

¹  cosmovivencia: term to describe life and the experience of the cosmos 

Marciano injured

“It seems life is still determined to do me harm.  I write this letter from the Hospital de la Charitá, ward Boyer, bed 22, from where I have just had an operation on an intestinal haemorrhage.  I’ve suffered twenty horrible days of physical pains and incredible spiritual dejections.  There are, Pablo, in life, bitter times, of dark blackness and closed to any consolation.  There are times more, much more sinister and tremendous than the tomb itself.  I have never known them before.  This hospital has shown them to me and I won’t forget them.” (letter from César Vallejo to Pablo Abril, 19^th October  1924)

Mr Marciano Amaya Pretel, from Anriqsha, in the province of Contumazá, is a colleague of ours, Voluntary Coordinator of many years in the rural libraries and also a coordinator in the Community Programme.

Like any good walker, one afternoon he set off into the country, tripped and fell down a ravine... he injured his kneecap and had to be taken to the Regional Hospital in Cajamarca.  But this was not the worst of his misfortunes.

Marciano, like Vallejo, also learnt things in the hospital:  he learnt that if you have no money, even if you have comprehensive health insurance, it’s of no use because the pins, the bits and all those instruments needed to reconstruct the kneecap, and the best medicines, are not just available like that, they cost, and they are expensive....and they are not available in Cajamarca either.

He learnt that if there is no “magic wand” to hand, the operation can be delayed even though the pain increases; that if you don’t have a little extra help, your family can’t even come to ask after you because the response they get will just be a “don’t you understand!?”

He learnt that however ill you are you have to wait or shout if you need help because the buzzer systems in the rooms no longer work; he learnt that any old rusty wire can be used to hold a drip bottle in a hospital where, at the same time, they don’t let your family near you because ”they contaminate the environment”.  He learnt that a used sheet can be used for the next patient, because, well, nobody will find out that it was used on another bed the day before...

The experience which Marciano went through reminds us once again of the deplorable conditions in which the people are “treated” in the public health service and our indignation grows ever more in the face of these abuses.

To Marciano, our continual regards and the most sincere wishes for a speedy recovery so that you may return to your long walks, to visit your children from the Community Programme and your Rural Libraries.   

To walk together

“When we travel together the path becomes shorter.  And we reach the destination sooner.  Even if the road is long, in company, one feels more motivated to keep going.”   Words of encouragement from Alfredo Mires in the introduction to the book He Began The Journey, volume 20 in the series “We the Cajamarcans”, to continue our work as the Network of Rural Libraries.

Ten years have passed since then, and we now celebrate 40 years work of the Network of Libraries.  That is no small thing.  And, obviously, a lot has changed.

In the countryside, many of the routes that our peasant coordinators followed in times gone by, have now become tracks where transport passes.  Today, communication is by mobile phone and in many peasant communities there is now running water, electricity, televisions and DVD players.

These changes come quickly and, along with comforts, they bring significant disadvantages.  Although on the face of it we should have more time, the shadow of acceleration, isolation and solitude is also extending through the countryside.

These are far reaching challenges.  And whilst there is no return ticket nor the luxury of discouragement, there are infinite questions which we would like to share and absolve collectively.

How to keep forging “new men” in today’s context?

We welcome the encouragement!  May it always be easier to travel together.

Landscapes and lost ways

Our ancestors always took care to ensure their houses were in harmony with the landscape in which they were located.  This way, the buildings not only mimicked the environment but felt part of it, without attacking its beauty or altering the equilibrium with their presence.

With the colony, many buildings were constructed on the old sites and others imposed their foreign styles, but even then the indigenous builders took care to incorporate their own influence.

So, the basic characteristic which remained in the mountain towns was the adobe houses with tiled roofs.

Many provincial capitals exhibit - until today - their old mansions with balconies and traditional facades.  But in recent years, benefitting the badly named “noble material”, the deterioration of what is decent material has been spreading: enormous monstrosities are rising, offending the view.

It is as if an unlimited anxiety were pushing to move closer to the ideal image of the western world, expressed not just in clothing fashion, but in the entire appearance of a city; as if an irrepressible cheapness is striving to impose itself over nature.

The Spanish writer Pío Baroja was right when he said, “Constructed cement is an honest and useful muse, and perhaps in the hands of a brilliant architect it would be admirable; but when it goes astray and feels bold, like a cook launching into singing couplets, it makes such horrors that it should be restrained and taken to prison”.

  

Evaluations

On 13^th August, the Rural Libraries Community Programme held a workshop on the evaluation that began in early July.

In this workshop we discussed the points and details that the evaluators had observed during their visits to our children, parents and coordinators in the countryside, as a means of establishing a more complete picture of this external evaluation.

The evaluators highlighted many positive aspects of our work, and also – together – we found several deficiencies which we must correct and improve.

For us, a great achievement in this workshop was the work done by our base coordinators in a group task the following day, by themselves.  The evaluators had tasked them with working through the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) of their own work, and they surprised us once again with their critical capacity, their accurate observations, their analysis and their reflections on the situation they live daily in their own rural communities, where the reality extends much further than can be observed.

In this sense we also thank the Network of Rural Libraries for the 40 years of companionship, training and learning of the community members who continuing working side by side, defending their culture and their rights.  

Caleros and rock art

For many years Mr Miguel Rodríguez has toiled with sincere passion for the recovery of the ancient Cajabamban cultura.  Accompanied by his family and those who appreciate the work he does.

He has not only managed to compile an extraordinary collection of cultural evidence in the “Yachaihuasi” Centre, but also exercise his extraordinary talent with gourds and pumpkins, inventing and reinventing images.

Not longer ago, Miguel decided to incorporate the iconography of Cajamarca - published by our Network – in the design of caleros (small containers for lime powder), that fundamental companion for the chewing of the sacred coca leaf.  The result has been an eye-catching exposition and then his return to the countryside, to the “armadores” (chewers) who proudly display these colourful caleros.

We give our regards to Miguel, for that steady hand, for his generous friendship and for that tireless effort to restore the vigorous beauty of our own culture.