30 years in the saddle bag

- please Padre, I want to see a book
- But can you read?
- Yes. On our way to school we cut a catcus leaf with our machetes, and with a nail we carve letters and numbers onto the leaf, but the teacher told us about books and that you’ve brought some to our village.

I selected a history of Peru from his bookshelf. In 300 pages the book described the great civilisations of the Andes, culminating in the Inca Empire. The arrival of the Spanish Conquistadors in 1532 marked the beginning of a long period of colonial decline and exploitation. The independence from Spain and Portugal achieved by most Latin American countries 150 years ago meant little or nothing to the population of campesinos or peasant farm-labourers.

- Please may I borrow that book?
- For two weeks, Leonardo. Then I’ll change it for another, take special care of it.

Within 24 hours the book had been returned, read and enjoyed immensely. Leornardo had stayed up all night (with candles ‘borrowed’ from the church), unable to stop reading the story of his people.

Today there are over 600 villages with libraries in northern Peru. The network relies on volunteer campesino librarian families who collect books in their saddle-bags from the central library in Cajamarca City. There are no vehicles and no library buildings in the villages. Books are kept in the houses of the librarian families until they are loaned to readers. Group reading (usually in the open air) is frequent since there is much illiteracy, especially among the women.

Alfredo Mires has encouraged the campesinos to write their own books instead of relying exclusively on material from outside. A series of 30 titles make up the Enciclopedia Campesina , highlighting folk medicine, agricultural techniques, first aid, history, legends and customs, animal husbandry etc.

The Rural Library Network has been adapted by other Andean Regions. More recently in May 2001, Mires addressed a symposium on Rural Education in Addis Ababa, attended by representatives from four countries in the Horn of Africa.

The real impact of the Rural Libraries is to be found in the dozens of personal stories that come from readers and librarians alike. Take Marcial Rumay Cortez, for example. The journey from Cajamarca City to his mountain community in Shindin is a two-hour bus ride, then an hour and a half trek up a mountain. Two years ago, Cortez’s wife contracted a mysterious illness which no-one in the village recognised.

“But in the library” his wife explains “there was a book on health and remedies, so my husband looked up the symptoms. I had all the signs of bronchial pneumonia. There were also some instructions for a remedy.

My neighbours did everything it said, found all the right plants, collected them up, boiled the leaves and made me a herbal tea. Gradually over the next two days my fever went down and I got better. Otherwise I would have died.”