North Watch Post: A Novel About Day 2
Winter is coming…..
Anyway, this morning we did several group activities in our respective watch groups. There were four stations, and we rotated after 30 minute intervals. For us, the North Watch, our first activity was actually run by members of our group, Sydney and Devon, who talked about important terms such as “transgender” and “non-binary.” I think we can all agree that the whole experience was very informative.
Our second activity was with program coordinator Angelica, who spoke to us about gender disparity on the environmental awareness front. We learned that having both genders represented in the movement towards increased environmental awareness would be more beneficial and help to expedite the process.
Our third activity was led by Marines and Alicia. They gave us a basic overview of Costa Rica including details of its booming eco-tourism, population, and geography. We have a native Costa Rican as part of our watch group, Ariel, so we got a very interesting perspective on how he perceives his country.
Finally, our last activity was an information session about the United World Colleges, a movement of IB international boarding schools all around the world. One of our very own watch members, Katie Nguyen, plans to attend one of 14 campuses located across the globe come this fall. Specifically, she will be representing the U.S. at UWC-Atlantic in the UK. She, and a recent graduate of the UWC in India, talked to us about the admission process to UWC as well as the student life. It sounds a like a valuable experience. Katie says, “I absolutely adore the entire UWC movement. I strongly believe when you bring together people from a plethora of varying nations and cultures that we can achieve peace and a sustainable future”. Following our final activity, we broke for lunch. 🙂
Following lunch, our next activity was a two-hour excursion into Santa Ana. The city itself is a diverse community offering a wide variety of amenities and granting many opportunities to practice the Spanish language and learn a new culture. People purchased souvenirs, coffee, churros, bagged milk and other goodies. Luckily, we can pay with US Dollars, but the change comes in Costa Rican currency, which I think makes for a sweet souvenir. Everyone’s experience in the town was unique, and even if entire groups stayed together the whole time, we all met with different challenges and visualized not only a new city, but a new life. Those two hours went very quickly, and soon, it was time to return to the UWC campus.
After going through town, we took a set of four rotating workshops. The first workshop was about Plan Parenthood which described the duties it takes today and the misconceptions about what it does. Next, we learned about clean tech or clean energy. We learned about the pros and cons of the solar panels, wind turbines, and geothermal energy. Following that, we journaled about what we last ate at home, where it came from, and environmental impact of it. Our last workshop spoke to the topic of the way clean water is used whether efficiently or inefficiently throughout our world.
After our set of activities, we ate dinner– the usual rice and beans. Following dinner we learned how to salsa, merengue, and bachata. Then we separated into watch groups and discussed our 5 C’s: color, culture, class, character, and context. Our group went so into depth that we only got through 3.
This was not a surprise! The North Watch Group is extremely thorough, hence this blog post. We gathered back together and discussed our day.
And then we wrote a blog about it. Here’s the link.
https://www.gyli.org/multimedia/blog/