DAY 5- Local Business

Dear families, friends, and this group’s passionate readers,

My name is Henry Top and today I had the honor of leading this delegation. I can gratefully say that these students are honestly the best and easiest students that I’ve worked with in my life (maybe that’s not saying too much considering that I’ve only led elementary schoolers and 9th graders but I still mean it). Regardless, I still learned about being a leader. I have learned that being a leader is not just about my experience but about emulating leadership for future leaders as well. I have learned to keep a positive attitude and continue to be flexible despite changing plans and unforeseen issues. And most importantly I have learned that mutual respect between leaders and students is the key to a functioning relationship. Enough about me though, y’all are here for your favorite kids so let’s indulge on our day. After a spontaneous mix-up in our itinerary, we visited a local panaderia (bakery) called La Paulina. The owner, Ana, graciously let us into her behind-the-scenes where we watched, learned, and enjoyed bread, rolls, and sweet treats. And we’d all love to go again despite the sizzling heat of the ovens. Following that, we took a more professional outlook and discussed how “foreign business impacts local business in Las Tablas.” I’m proud to say that almost every student asked a question to continue our conversation with Ana about her family business, its history, and how she works with other businesses so that all businesses can thrive. She mentioned how foreign and local businesses depend on each other for goods, expansion, and support; and that she is proud to continue her father’s legacy in the food industry. After our final thank you’s and goodbyes, we left for the local supermercado (super market) to further explore the city and enjoy our time here. Unfortunately, not much of interest on this excursion other than some fun purchases of food and Jose being his usual self chatting up the local people. Then we headed back home for lunch and locked in for some project preparation work. Another amazing aspect of the students that I was impressed with was everyone’s decision to use much of their free time to collaborate and prepare for our presentations tomorrow to Maruquel – the head of our partner organization. So from roughly 1 p.m – 4 p.m we worked on posters, budgets, and logistics in our groups then spent the rest of our free time in the pool. This was a lot of glimpsers “rose of the day” as we spent a couple hours playing and laughing together. After our hard work and fun time, we hungrily scarfed down our dinner and I held our nightly meeting. I personally enjoyed leading this as it was a great time to get everyone to participate and have an opportunity to express my overall gratitude to this group (if it wasn’t implied hard enough, my constant reiteration of “gratitude” and “honor” is just me trying to tell you that you can rest assured knowing that you raised great children).

That’s all for today, tune in tomorrow to the next update with… Angelina and Bryanda!