Without Borders: La Parte que Falta

The last two weeks of summer here (which was also the last two weeks of January), we had a type of summer school for the younger girls in the morning. As the librarian, my job was (obviously) to work on reading with them. Before coming here, it had been a while since I had read children’s stories, and especially reading so much with the younger girls these past couple of weeks, I have realized that some of them are actually really well-written and profound. One of my favorites that I recently read was a Shel Silverstein book called “La Parte Que Falta y La O Grande,” or, in English, “The Missing Piece Meets the Big O”. For those of you not as well-versed in children’s literature as I now am, I’ll give you a brief synopsis or I would recommend that you just read the whole book here because it’s really short, has pictures, and I’m not nearly as good of a writer as Shel Silverstein. But for those of you who just want to hear my synopsis, basically there is a little piece shaped like a pie that wants to go somewhere, so it is looking for a circle with a pie-shaped piece missing so that they can join together and be able to roll. But it can’t find a shape the right size and shape that will help it to roll. After a long time, one comes along that fits perfectly, but then the missing piece grows so that it doesn’t fit anymore, and it gets left alone again. Then, one day, the big O shows up, and the missing piece wonders if it would fit in the Big O so they could roll together. The Big O says it is not missing a piece, but maybe the missing piece can roll by itself. The missing piece replies that it is not shaped for rolling, but the Big O says that shapes can change before stating that it has to go and rolls away. After a long time of being alone, the missing piece slowly lifts itself up and flips over. It does it again and again until its edges start to wear off and eventually it’s rolling on its own as a little O! The book ends with a picture of the missing piece (now a small O) rolling next to the Big O.

Did anyone else think that Shel Silverstein was a woman? Definitely not.

I initially really liked this book because it was adorable, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it could relate to so many aspects of life. First I thought about romantic relationships. So many people (including myself in high school and the beginning of college) think that they need to be involved romantically for them to be happy and move forward in life, but they don’t realize that they need to learn to “roll” on their own first. But then I realized that it could be generalized even more and apply to any type of relationship, romantic or otherwise. A healthy relationship is not one where the lack of one person cripples the other from moving forward, but one where they both help each other along, side-by-side. This also applies to mission work as well. My job is to help the girls move forward: in their education, their spiritual life, and their emotional maturity. However, like it or not, I personally will not be here for the rest of their lives to help them (although other volunteers will come and replace me). If I am successful in helping them this year I will not do it in such a way that when I do leave in a little more than half a year, they will stop growing and learning because I am gone. Rather, the best method of teaching is to help your students help themselves because they are capable of so much more than they imagined, just like the missing piece never thought it would be able to roll on its own until the Big O suggested it. And even though I initially thought it was kind of mean of the Big O to leave the missing piece on its own when it couldn’t move anywhere (it just said “I must say good-bye” without any explanation), I realized that that was exactly what I was going to do to the girls when I leave. And after going through new volunteers every year, they know it too, because from the first day I got here, they continually ask me when I am leaving. However, by just saying a few words to help the missing piece realize that it could move on its own, the Big O was doing so much more for it than just pushing it along. I hope and pray that when I leave here, I will have made some impact on at least some of the girls’ lives, by encouraging them and helping them realize that they are able to move on their own too.

As far as other news to report, I don’t have too much, but a couple of exciting things have happened. First of all, Don Bosco’s feast day is January 31, so we got together with all of the orphanages in the Santa Cruz area to celebrate, especially because this year marks 200 years since Don Bosco’s birth! There was a big celebration complete with dancing, clowns, carnival games, and a swimming pool! It was also a good way to end the summer, because this Monday the new school year began for the girls! February should be an exciting month because of Valentine’s Day, Carnaval (Bolivia's version of Marti Gras, which is apparently a lot of fun!), and my parents coming to visit on February 27! Stay tuned for my next post to hear about it!