Hello, my name is Jazmin Lorenzo and I was today’s El Lider Del Dia (The Leader Of The Day) for Global Business Day. Although today wasn’t quite as tiring as the past four days, I’d say it was still a long day for some of us. Our morning began with a delicious breakfast, and a very opinionated seminar. It was very interesting to hear the group’s opinions and thoughts about trade between Nicaragua and the US. Some of the us had gotten so into it, that eventually the leaders had to stop them and ask them to continue during lunch! 

After our seminar, we took a small field trip to Tabacalera Santiago, a tobacco factory in Esteli, where we were able to see the actual production of cigars. There were many things had surprised me about the factory, like the fact that most of the people in Esteli were actually employed in the tobacco factory. I learned about the different types of cigars that were made, and how much time it takes to create a cigar.

Later that day, we also went to Mujeres Ambientalistas (Environmentalist Women), and learned that two out of the many women that had founded the organization were still continuing with their actions and teaching others about their mission 19 years later. One interesting fact I learned, was that it had actually started out as a place for unmarried women with children to work. We were able to see how they  mix recycled paper and plant-based waste to create beautiful greeting cards, notebooks, and photo albums.  We each got a chance to make our own sheet of paper from banana, cebolla (onion) and paper fibers.

Our last activity of the day, was a seminar on English training, in which we were given an idea on how to come up with a lesson plan to teach English. Starting tomorrow we will be teaching a two-hour English class to people in Esteli. Over the course of the next two weeks we will be teaching six English classes to the same group of students.

Overall, being El Lider Del Dia wasn’t as much of an easy task as I thought it’d be. I feel that I had quite definitely stepped out of comfort zone on this day, and most likely did things I wouldn’t really do on a normal basis. Although there had been a few times in which I wanted to just quit and stop right there and then, some students helped keep me going. They had motivated me to not give up and even helped me when I had faced a few troubles with the job, and made my overall experience better than it already was. 

I learned that it’s actually not as bad as it seems to step out of your comfort zone because you’ll always have someone to help you along the way, whether it may be a friend, or someone you’ve just met. It actually helps a whole lot to try and push yourself past the boundaries you keep and after today, I feel like I was able to show a lot more about myself than I usually show.

Tobacco leaves after being flattened out and getting ready to roll into cigars

Nicaraguan tour guide teaching students about tobacco leaves and how they are treated before making in products

Kevin’s recycled paper

Miguel in the process of squeezing the water out from the ‘pasta’ of food pulp and paper fibers

Miranda and employee teaching her how to screen print a design on a tobacco box lid

GG Leader Breanne in front of Tobacalera Santigo factory. This factory does every part of the process in house from planting seeds to shipping the boxes of cigars.