Hey everyone!

My name is Mareiya and I had the pleasure of being the very first student ELDD or in other words El Lider Del Dia. Today was Global Business day. The day was filled with lots of interesting and inspiring stories and information. One thing that was extremely moving was to see the process of how coffee was made, more specifically how much time and effort is put into making it. We got to see where the coffee bean is grown, where they grind the pulp off of the bean, how they dry the bean, how they take the skin off of the bean, how they roast it and finally, how they package it.

One of the things that surprised the whole group was the effort that café cooperatives make into making coffee when they only receive so little for their labor. In the nightly meeting Alicia stated it best: “making coffee is a long process and it takes time and lots of work for them to make coffee however the workers receive less than those who sell it.” This was surprising because the coffee laborers do all the hard work while those who just sell the coffee get a large profit compared to the coffee cooperatives.

Throughout the ASOCAES (the coffee cooperative we went to) tour almost every single person asked questions. It was clear that my peers were extremely interested in the coffee process. After Mimio (the guy that gave us the tour) explained each step of the coffee making process my peers and I only became more and more eager to try the coffee. When we finally tried the coffee, Graces reaction was best. She said “this coffee is so good that I would literally spend my 200$ and buy as many bags as I can.”

Mimio was one of the most inspiring people I met today. In the beginning of the tour he said “I don’t want to be doing this job anymore” in a playful way of course. It was really ironic because throughout the whole process you can see that he was actually extremely passionate about what he did.

Being the ELDD was a great experience; it helped me grow as a person and as a leader. I appreciated all the support from my peers and the Global Glimpse staff. One thing I learned about myself is that I was better at communicating with people than I had originally thought. Global Glimpse is a great program and it was my honor to be the first student ELDD.

See ya on the 29th!
-Mareiya