Today we had an early wake up so we could get to our Community Action Project on time. I (Gigi) was part of the group that had to paint the bricks, so we started by scraping paint off the walls. We were really surprised because we thought we would just clean the walls and paint, but the scraping took most of the time. As LĂ­der del Dia, I had to motivate everyone to keep working even though the work was difficult and most people were tired. We ended up getting a lot of help from other groups and finishing one coat of the paint. I was really proud of everyone for persevering and following the directions of the community members. I was also happy to be able to help an organization like Utopia that does so much work with food locally. After our work projects we had our fourth tutoring class. I was really impressed by how much English the kids have learned so far, and how my own group has learned to work better together. One challenge for me was speaking up to address the whole group. I learned that I have to use my voice more as a leader in order to get people’s attention.

The perspective, that seemed to be today in the leadership position, was interesting. Interesting in the way many people view leadership and being a leader as more having the role of a boss, an all-knowing entity that is put in place to direct more everything. The manner in which leadership was explored today: different perspectives were encountered on what leadership meant or how leadership is supposed to be “fulfilled”. That being, letting minds and spirits run as they would only with the constraints of the held “egos” and the human level of experience which we hold, superficially. Leadership has more been defined as a role, which it is not. Leadership is an ever changing occurrence, which each person does one’s best in order to mold it to one’s will. In the instance of today, “leadership” was not much different from A Day in The Life. A day which an overlaying theme was: not everything is known, there is no omniscience in leadership, everything is being figured out by us, and we are at the foreground of this, together. Unknowingly, Deaglan.

P.S. Some technical difficulties with the photos. Sorry!