Fecund Facundo

In Guatemala, in the early of hours of 9^th of July, the Argentinean singer-songwriter Facundo Cabral was killed.  He was 74 years old.  He was returning from singing.

His singing was poetry and philosophy, ironic anecdotes, shuddering experiences cemented with music.

When he began singing, from very young, he called himself “El indio Gasparino”.  Years later, then with his own name, Facundo became a singer of protest which highlights the capacity to enhance life and the possibility to be better.

He was forced into exile during the dictatorship which lashed his country.  His life was to deliver a message of conflict and of peace, of justice and liberty.

The man said: “Don’t say ‘I can’t’, not even in jest, because the unconscious has no sense of humour, it will take it seriously and will remind you of it each time you try it!”.

Or he sang that his mother used to say: “If the bad knew what a good business it is to be good, they would be good, if only for the business”.

And he sang that, shortly before she died, his mother said to him: “I die happy because you are more and more like what you sing.”

Teodoro Alejandría

A few weeks ago, our colleague Alfredo Mires visited Teodoro Alejandría, community member and Coordinator of the Sector of la Cullana, in the South-West of the province of Cutervo.  Alfredo later told us of the exemplary encouragement displayed by Teodoro on his journeys.

Although some communites in the area have lost interest in continuing with their libraries, the effort persists in places like Conday, Chipuluc or in Cullana itself.  Teodoro encourages reading in the meetings of the Peasant Rounds – once a month- and each time youngsters meet to play on the community sports fields.  They have organised with the patrolmen what they are calling The Cultural Hour: “There we talk of the importance of reading”, Teodoro tells, “we talk about the books which we have read and say something about what we have learnt.”

The community members are dedicated to beginning the recovery of the oldest traditions, encouraged by Teodoro and the rural libararians: “We want people, for example, to understand the tradition of the farbulitos (the name given to a child who dies and becomes an angel); to respect places like the tacshana (the place where the clothes of the deceased are washed)”.

As the Nicaraguan writer Gioconda Belli said, “solidarity is the tenderness of the people”.  Dedication like that of Teodoro tells us that the road is long, but it is one worth walking.

Books like butterflies

In the last few days, a packet flew in for us.  On opening it we found many children’s books, with pictures, colours and laughter.

Gaby Hidalgo – a colleague of ours who some years ago worked as a volunteer with the Network and continues her support from a distance – had told her colleague Pedro Marchena about her experience with our Rural Libraries of Cajamarca.

The Marchena family took the subject seriously and transformed their interest into solidarity: they have sent a box of prized children’s books, as a donation to our libraries in the countryside.  The books had belonged to their daughter Valerie who is now grown up and is reading other books.

Pedro wrote to us saying: ”We hope that as to Valerie these books were the entrance to a limitless world, so they too can be to those who can read them now.”

We can already imagine the great pleasure and enthusiasm for reading which these books, generously donated, will awaken in the hearts of our readers in the countryside, above all the smallest among them.

Sometimes, books arrive like butterflies, in colourful and dedicated flight.

A grateful hug – for this inspiration – to all our friends and a special one for Valerie.       

Evaluation of the Community Programme

Evaluar (to evaluate) comes from the French verb évaluer meaning “to estimate, to appreciate, to calculate the value of something”.  Although we certainly respect, appreciate and love what we do, an external view can always contribute new perceptions.

It is for this reason that this year the organisation Kindernothilfe which has collaborated with the Community Programme since 2004, has proposed an evaluation of our activities.

We accept this proposal gladly and with an enthusiasm to continue learning together, to continually improve the work with, and for, the children with potential capabilities with whom we work in the countryside.

And it is for them that we wish to regenerate daily our convictions, our commitment and our affection.

Surely, together we will succeed.

And so we continue: respecting, appreciating and valuing.

  

John present

In 1975, using an expression by the poet César Vallejo, John Metcalf – founder of the Network of Rural Libraries of Cajamarca – published “Human Men: the liberating dimension in Peruvian literature”.

The book was dedicated to the community of Llaucán, where he had spent his first years living in the Cajamarcan mountains and in which lives the memory of the massacre suffered by the countrymen in 1914.  In 1978 the second edition was published, this time dedicated “To the Martyrs of Huacataz – Massacred 29^th December 1977”.  By this time, this community had formed part of John’s parish and he accompanied the members of the community from within.

In the introduction he wrote:

We refute the opinion that authentic art exists for the limited circles of intellectuals which reside in the great capitals of the world; we adopt, instead, the position that the majority of master works produced throughout human civilisation have also been destined to serve the great popular masses, motivating them to liberate themselves from the injustices and the servitude particular to their own place and time.

Many years have passed since the publication of that book, and today marks nine years since John’s passing, but his spirit remains present among us.  Even more so now, when so many sell their word and scorn their own people, in the name of plundering which feigns sponsorship.

 

Coherence is an asset which suffers neither decay nor forget.

Libraries and Consuelo

After attending a conference given by our colleague Alfredo Mires in Medellín a couple of years ago, Consuelo Marín, a Colombian librarian, asked if she could visit us to see our experience directly, as she had attained a grant to visit Peru.

So, Consuelo has visited us, has come out to the countryside to see some of our libraries, and we organised a workshop on encouraging reading in schools, in which teachers, students and other interested parties participated.

In this workshop we reaffirmed that if adults love to hear fantastic (or seemingly fantastic) stories, then children and teenagers, who retain an enormous capacity to wonder, even more so.  The experiences demonstrated show us that motivating children and teenagers to read and write is not an impossible task: it is an urgent decision, a responsibility which teachers, parents and society in general must assume if, for once and for all, we wish to contribute to positive change within this alienating and graceless education system, in its daily practices inside and outside the classroom.