“Let us pick up our books and pens. They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one book, one pen, and one teacher can change the world.” – Malala Yousafzai
I was told free day would be the easiest day to be the leader of the day. This turned out to be a lie. Sure I had the freedom of getting up at a decent hour like 8:00 AM, but after trying to wake people up for the next two hours to get everyone down to breakfast before 10, I realized today would be more challenging than I thought. I must have spent at least 20 minutes in total just waking people up and making sure they stayed up. Throughout the day, it was hard to get my fellow Glimpsers to listen to what I had to say through excitement of having a day off, and get them to where they needed to be on time (we were late to almost every event of the day).
But then I realized that it felt like we were all a family. Every family has their struggles of getting together and getting ready on time, with members bickering at each other to “hurry up or we’ll be late” I realized that our group loves each other like family, even after only nine days of being all together. In the morning I had the pleasure of seeing all the smiles of the homesick Glimpsers talking to their parents, siblings and other loved ones on the phone, and I later realized I saw those same smiles light up when we explored San Juan together for our free day.
To start our explore time, we went to a local flea market, led by one of our ambassadors Manuel. We had to dodge through small streets filled with people and motorbikes to stay together, but we got to see all of the interesting foods and clothing that people offered to sell as well. After a while of browsing, our group split in two as some went to the nail salon while others went to check out the clothing and candy stores. As part of the larger group that didn’t go to the salon, I can tell you that it was tough wandering as a group of eleven. It takes a lot of patience to wait 20 minutes for the last one or two people to finish browsing the store.
But, as always, we made the most out of our adventures together by making each other laugh and smile all the time, and I’m sure we got great pictures and memories out of our day today.
However, we later learned that the other group had taken longer in the nail salon than expected. They got out of the salon and had gotten ice cream by 5:10, but then that they had to be back to Onaney, our hotel, in 5 minutes. They broke into full sprint with ice cream in hand back to the hotel and made it last minute, sweating, gasping for air, and licking their cones as well. It made for a very funny story.
After a short but important seminar about appreciation, we had dinner. At dinner, our GGLs and I noticed that our usual cliques had broken and we had fully mixed into new groups for our conversations at dinner, which really showed how far we had come over the course of this last week and a half as a family. It made my day to see everyone shining bright with smiles and laughter at dinner, and it made me even happier to see that they carried over to our usual tired nightly meeting. As we all shared our experiences and thoughts for the day, my only thought was: “We really have become a family.”
Thais-
Hearing from you on saturday was a good lil catch on, on how you’ve been and how DR is treating you. Cuidate mucho y te extraña jackie (“bronx zoo con tais”).
Hi Steven,
Some of your comments made me laugh as I visualized Glimpsers running in desperation with ice cream in their hands to make it back to the hotel on time. But most of all, I truly love that you are feeling part of a family with your group. It is so important to have that sense as part of this experience. I love seeing all of the pictures of your daily adventures!
We miss you and love you! Please call me as soon as you can – I can’t wait to talk to you.
Love,
Mom
Great job as leader of the day Steven. It has been great to read the blog posts and be updated on your trip. Continued safe travels.
Thanks, Mom! <3
Thank you Steven for a vivid blog post, full of fun details, humour, and feeling of this loving family you guys are becoming.
Max, I want to tell you a funny dream I had last night. In my dream, you were playing your yinyl records and resting in your bed. I was happily surprised and confused, so I asked, if you were home, then who was the guy in those photos? You grinned and said “take a guess who’s the real Max”. Then I woke up! I am so looking forward to this weekend, seeing you back home, playing your vinyls and resting in your bed!