Finishing up

I’m done! My term with the Mennonite Central Committee is now officially over. October 31 was my last day in the office; November 1 I participated in my last workshop for librarians and library committee members. I’ve had my wrap-up meetings with the administration and cleaned out my desk; all that’s left to do is turn in my final medical forms and close out my expense account. Three years have come and gone. How about that.

I’ve been wondering what to write as a conclusion to my work with MCC. It’s been such a rich and varied experience—such a mix of joys, sorrows, frustrations, and epiphanies. So rather than try to sum it all up, I’ll share with you an anecdote I included in my final progress report for the MCC Libraries Project—an experience I think captures the essence of the work I came to Bolivia to help carry out.

The question was, “Describe a high point or significant learning experience that took place during the period covered by this report.”



It was a Friday, and I was leaving the school at Bisito (a rural community where MCC helped start up a library during the time I worked with the program). Pedro Fajardo and I had handed out the prizes for the reading contest during a school assembly for the primary grades; Damián Apala had handed out the prizes to the winners of the 7th and 8th grades.

I felt satisfied with the work we had done the day before. That Thursday, when I arrived 20 minutes before the start of the contest, the library committee (made up of Pedro Fajardo and his wife, two working people, and Damián Apala, a teacher) had already set up the library for the contest. On the table where the jury would sit was one copy for each judge of the texts the students would read (selected from library books according to their grade level), as well as a chart on which the judges could list the names of the participants and their scores for pronunciation, attention to punctuation marks, and reading comprehension. Several ladies wearing the traditional dress of the Bolivian altiplano had already arrived, and sat waiting to hear their children read out loud.

As the students entered the library, Damián directed them to form lines according to grade level: first grade through eighth. After the singing of the national anthem and some words by Don Pedro and the school principal, the contest began.

The students stepped up to the podium one by one and read aloud the text that had been selected for each one’s grade level. Then the other judges and I (two of the school’s literature teachers) asked each reader to express what they had understood—the youngest ones by drawing the butterfly or horses they had read about, the older ones by summarizing their fairy tale or essay selection in their own words. It was clear that the students had practiced reading the texts, the youngest ones probably with the help of their teachers. It had been Mr. Apala’s idea to take students’ comprehension into account as well as their oral fluidity; many students in Bolivia struggle to get beyond the mere mechanics of reading so that they can truly understand what they are reading. This is especially true in rural school districts, where trained teachers are often scarce and only a small percentage of students finish high school. So I was glad to see that almost all of the students participating in the contest that day were able to express the text’s meaning clearly and without major difficulties, other than shyness. When all of the participants had had their chance at the podium, the literature teachers and I added up their scores and wrote down the names of the winners.

The next morning we handed out the prizes—toys and table games donated by the young professionals' division of the local Rotary Club, plus school supplies donated by MCC. It was a pleasure to witness the happiness of the first- through sixth-graders when Pedro and I read the winners’ names and they came forward one by one. I was glad we were able to do this in front of their fellow students; the principal had agreed with the library committee members and me that it would be meaningful to publically recognize these reading champions, in the same way our societies so often recognize sports heroes.

But what I remember most vividly is the reaction of one eighth-grade girl who intercepted me as I was leaving to travel back to the MCC office. She was the reading contest winner in her age group. Although I hadn’t handed her her prize personally, she must have remembered me from the day I sat on the jury. She ran up to me, then stopped abruptly, blushing, and exclaimed with a big smile on her face, “Gracias! Gracias por tomarme en cuenta!”

Gracias is easy to translate as “thank you,” but I want to say a word about “Gracias por tomarme en cuenta.” The verb phrase tomar en cuenta means to pay attention to, to take seriously, to take into account. When we recognized that young girl’s achievements in reading, we did something that perhaps few other people had done for her. Her words stuck with me because I think they describe what MCC’s Libraries Project tries to accomplish, what I have hoped to accomplish during my time in Bolivia: to pay attention to, take seriously, take into account the children, young people, and adults of marginalized communities so that they, too, will have the opportunity to read, to achieve, and to feel like winners.


Photo captions, from the top:

The blackboard in the Bisito library features the theme of its first reading contest: "Reading is the key to success."

Students, parents, and Teacher Damián prepare for the contest to begin.

The jury compares notes.

Anita hands a prize to a winner from the 4th- through 6th-grade category.