Drinking in the knowledge

A library built on booze… literally!

Santa Catarina Minas, Oaxaca, like so many rural communities in Mexico is a village of women and children left behind.  The men emigrate to find more remunerative work, and the best and the brightest leave for better educational opportunity.  If only it had, at the very least, a library and community resource center… something to give the youngsters a chance to further their education at home, and perhaps, a reason to stay.

Now, they will, thanks to Graciela Ángeles Carreño, and the other women of the community, who have taken over the traditional male perogative of producing mezcal.  With the help of Sabrá Dios — a distributor of “artisanal mezcal”, the village’s  “minero” mezcal is providing the very bricks from which a new 4000 square meter public library and community resource center.

Mezcal is produced from the heart of the maguay, reduced to mash which is then fermented.  The residue of the maguay is the perfect binder for a fine durable adobe known as guarape.

8000 guarape bricks later, the municipality’s first public library is nearing completion.