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.

    

"It is not only what one does that counts..."

Here, we have transcribed some fragments of the speech which our colleague Alfredo Mires gave during the tribute which the Provincial Municipality of Cajamarca gave us last month:

... a place like Cajamarca, where historically the collision occurred – almost 500 years ago – between two ways of viewing and treating the world, and in which the book was an emblematic protagonist of this debacle.  Here not only occurred a genocide, but also what some call a ‘geniocide’, that is, the application of death beyond the physical, trying to eradicate the genius and ingenuity of our peoples; a systematic and permanent aggression to exterminate the souls, the minds, the aspirations and the dreams.

... we are here and it always seems to us that we are just starting.  Perhaps that is because it is not only what one does that counts but in the name of what cause one does it, that is, whether you hustle for a today which is synonymous with devastation and plunder, or, you bustle in the name of a tomorrow which is dignified, sovereign and healthy.

... this Network would not have survived if it wasn’t for the contagious daring and dazzling enthusiasm of the integral community members.  That extraordinary community school, humble and respectful, brave and jubilant, keeps away the devious individualistic social ambitions and the needy self-indulgencies of the false commitments.

... in the process of introducing books into rural areas and encouraging reading in the communities, it can simply be better to first ask those who do not know how to read and write, rather than those who do.  This way we can not only construct coordinated programmes but also identify the endogenous values which allow us to catch on to that which, in reality, can enrich the group, instead of invading and uprooting it.

... the book in itself can also be besieging and colonising, and the libraries can therefore be like museums of falsehood, like cold repositories of foreign and unusable letters.

... because the greatest problem does not lie in not knowing how to read and write, but in not knowing how to decipher nor delineate the attitudes.  We can read a lot without understanding anything, just as we can write a lot but falsifying everything.  So, it is one thing to be an educated ignoramus, and something very different to be a wise illiterate.

The book, then, can be a prodigious talisman helping to mould the future, but it is not sufficient unless it is accompanied by legitimate processes which respond to the urgencies of each context and by public policies which prioritise the forging of citizens who are learned, incorruptible, committed and completely identified with their culture and their land.

... because it is not possible to satisfy ourselves with a galloping technological growth in parallel to a runaway decrease in ethics.  As neither is it plausible to have an apparent pecuniary wellbeing in correlation with the elevated indices of illiteracy, lack of access to education, early school leavers and environmental depredation.          

Books in the making

The heart of the Network of Rural Libraries is the exchange of books.  It is a systole and diastole of pages and reading.

Each coordinator, when they pass the Central Office in Cajamarca, takes the opportunity to bring books that have been read and take away new books, so as to constantly enliven the reading in the countryside.  They then distribute these books again between the rural libraries for which they are responsible.  This is what we call the exchange and the reason why we have an Exchange Centre in our institutional premises.

To continually maintain the Exchange Centre with new and diverse books is the great challenge of the Rural Libraries.  The books are the incentive, the essence and – as we’ve said – the heart of our organisation: from them we learn, with them we discuss, through them we grow.

In recent years, as our organisation is sustained on a voluntary basis, the donations and tokens of support of some friends committed to the Network have been extraordinarily valuable.  We move forward, but the large steps – such as, for example, to produce our new editions – require an enormous effort.

  

Therefore, we would like to express our recognition to the Provincial Municipality of Cajamarca which – in the ceremony in tribute to the Libraries on 27^th May – pledged its support for two editions in 2011 and the donation of some units of books.

 

It is not only a pleasure to have new books in the hands of our rural readers, but also the commitment of solidarity in which a public institution can join.  

Greetings and flowers

We feel honoured by the gift of beautiful flowers and the card received from the Prof. Ángela Briones de Zurita, Director of the Centre of Special Basic Education, on behalf of all the staff at the Centre, expressing their congratulations for and recognition of our work in the field.

Our sincere thanks to them, and to all those who are writing to us.  As the roman poet Publio Virgilio Marón said two thousand years ago: “While the river flows, the mountains cast shadows and there are stars in the sky, the memory should persist of the benefit received in the mind of the thankful man.”  

Our elders' stories

Ding-dong on show

There was a man who loved parties, he never missed one.  He was a drunk.  One day there was a wedding at one of the neighbour’s, but he didn’t know there was going to be a party.  But his wife, she did know and she knew her husband was sure to go, and so when the man went to bed early that day his wife hid his trousers.  Now he won’t be able to go to the party, the lady said.

Around nine o’clock at night you could hear the drums and flutes:

- “Where is that party?”, he said to himself. As he quickly got up to look for his trousers and he couldn’t find them, after so much looking he said:

- “As my poncho is long I’ll just go like this; nobody will see that I’m naked underneath, yeah, I’ll just sit in the dark”.

And so he went to the party like that, and when the homebrew turned up he poured himself some hefty drinks.  As he loved his drink, he got drunk and then forgot he was naked.  One of his friends had realised and so found him a partner to dance with.  Being so drunk he just got out there!

Stood at his partner’s side, he hitched up his poncho and started dancing, with his poncho over his shoulder; when she saw he was naked with his ding-dong on show his partner went to sit down and everyone laughed at watching the man. 

There's a party at the house

When we are having a party we get the house ready nicely, the food, the music, we put some nice clothes on, and we anxiously await the arrival of the guests to whom sometimes we might even give a little gift....

This is how it seems to have been for the committee charged with preparing the tribute to our organisation: they got the Council Hall ready with nice chairs, put flowers and candles in the fountain, prepared snacks, some wine for the toast..... And even the Council Band played for us a little!

The programme was very simple and enjoyable; beginning with the Cajamarcan Anthem, a tune which will forever remind us of the tireless battles in defence of our sacred mountain Quilish.  Our General Coordinator, Javier Huamán Lara then presented a brief summary of the history, objectives and projects of the Network of Rural Libraries.  This was followed by a wonderful reading by José Isabel Ayay Valdez, from the community of Chilimpampa, of a story full of grace and wisdom, which brought great applause from the public.

At the heart of the ceremony the resolutions and diplomas were read, expressing the Special Recognition of the Provincial Municipality of Cajamarca to the Network of Rural Libraries – for its 40^th anniversary in service of the Promotion of Reading in the Communities – and to the Peruvian anthropologist and writer Alfredo Mires Ortiz, cofounder and Executive Advisor of our Network, dedicated to the recovery and revaluation of the identity of Cajamarca.

The table was presided over by the Deputy Mayor, Mr. Segundo Rojas Fernández representing the mayor Ramiro Bardales Vigo, joined by councillor Ginés Cabanillas, Prof. Carlos Cabrera Miranda, the Reverend Father Miguel Garnett and, of course, our colleagues Alfredo Mires y Javier Huamán, representing the Network.

At the culmination of this important ceremony, our colleague Alfredo Mires Ortiz made his awaited intervention, thanking the Municipality for its gesture and - with a solemn speech - made a point of highlighting the work of the colleagues in the countryside who drive this cultural movement from and for the communities.

Forty years with the books on the ground represent, as Machado says, “a path made through walking”.  We are sure that there are more years to come.