Learning to Trust, Collaborate, and Communicate

Fern, Komal, Ishani, Aimee, Lynda, Bailey, and Camila.

I woke up this morning about 6:20 AM, I quickly got up and got ready. I met at Buxton's lounge at 7:15 AM with the rest of my classmates, we were given tic repellent socks because the area we would be at today is known to have tics. All of our group walked over to the Ratty at 7:30 AM to eat breakfast and get fueled for the day. At breakfast I sat with Bailey, Lynda, and Camila and we all talked about how great today's french toast was, it was really good. After eating breakfast we headed out the gates and around the Ratty onto Thayer Street where the two big charter buses where waiting for us and another group to mount on. It was 8 AM we were on and we were off.

We arrived to Bristol, also known as Haffenreffer park here in Rhode Island. The park was was a donation from the Haffenreffer family to Brown University and it is now used as a site where students of the BELL Institution at Brown spend the whole 2 weeks of their summer program, but historically it was owned by the Native Americans and they still today revisit this property where their ancestors once came together at that same spot. I really thought the location was perfect and so beautiful.

Today was the Challenge Course day, the day we have been thinking about lately where we were expected to go through a series of challenges in which we would have to work together in a group to solve a problem. It might sound very easy but we have just met these people how must we trust them and expect them to trust us? Or how are we suppose to work together?

The girls in the group I was in were Lauren, Sachi, Elaine, Lynda, Bailey, Jaqueline, Komal, Camille, Fern, Maddy, and Jennifer. We were led by Christine and Nicole throughout all the series of challenges. At first we all did exercises in which we would need to gain trust with each other so we did trust falls, pipe lining, and levitating. It gave us a chance to really gain trust with people who we had only known for about a week. There was personal conflicts that arose through thse warm up exercises. Then we had a break which allowed us to at lunch and relax before the "real thing".

The first challenge we came across was learning how to balance a ramp, and everyone was a part of this, everyone individually mattered in this exercise and I believe that w all became aware of that after reflecting over the strategies we used in order to complete this task. Another very interesting challenge was called islands. We all as a group had to work together by standing on one platform that is not so big, so we were all crammed together to stay on the ramp because of the fear of receiving a penalty. This was probably one of the most difficult task to complete. My reflection on that course was very different. The whole time I felt as if everyone who were on the back of the platform with me were never really a part of the challenge in the sense that everyone was panicking and not being mindful to allow others to speak.

I honestly felt the perspective of many different people all at once during these challenges. At time I felt as if we were all collaborating and communication to achieve our main girl, but at other times I felt as if I didn't have much of the contribution of others in the sense that no one in my group would take time ask everyone to suggest everyone to share their own ideas to the activities. After every challenge I think we all had the time to discuss of what we thought about that certain activity and that really helped us communicate our thoughts and feelings with each other without any doubts

We finished the challenge course around 4 PM and then we all as a giant group spoke our last thoughts and we made our way back to the campus. As soon as I arrived to Brown Lynda and I ate dinner. Then went to print and experiment with the printers at the sciences lab where we printed pictures for our leadership map assignment that is due tomorrow at 9 AM. All day I really workd on homework assignments.

As everyday passes I feel as if my leadership skills grow and expand in many directions that they had never been able to and to just have the time to do this challenge course, I grasped the idea that a leader will not always have to lead alone but rather team up together with a group of people. Like they say "If you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.