Day 2, July 12

Day 2 July 12

Woke up really early so we could take turns using the bathroom by 7 I met up with the S.A girls in the lobby and then headed to star bucks and the breakfast buffet. The breakfast was briefly eggs, bacon and sausages they weren’t bad but the eggs were flavorless. Breakfast was … interesting because blonde boy Jaques sat with us and right across from me, the girls all have bfs so they weren’t interested and almost wanted to turn this into a mission trying to make me talk to him. We left a few minutes later to get to our LGMs. This LGM meeting was my favorite. We talked about cross cultural and generalization… what we first see when we visit a country. It then turned into a discussion and we formed into smaller groups and started labeling things onto a poster that had a drawing of an iceberg. Things that were seen in a country’s culture were drawn on the top of the iceberg and the ones visible in the middle and the rest under and sooo on.

After the cross cultural activity…

We had a politics of trade briefing which led to our first simulation,(continued later) basically, the scenario we were given was a dispute between two major aircraft companies “BOEING” a European company < the ones Middle east airline’s uses sometimes… and “Airbus” (American company) the issue was that one of the companies was given more subsidies than the other (or something like that) * a subsidy is basically… money ( a little help) from the government to help promote a private or public firm. So as Global Young Leaders or “Scholars” we were to pretend that we are these two companies and try to solve the issue. All 25 of us were divided into two equal groups and 5 or 6 people were to be part of The Council (in a normal case… the Judges)…but they had to be elected… long story made short, Jae was elected as president AND MYYY may I say! One day this gentle man will be the president of Barbados! < That’s where he’s from, that’s where Rihanna is from too ( I bet you just went like.. ooooh yeahh now I know where that is!) ( well.. I said that too when I met Jae an

d his Barbadian friends) Quick intro to where the 25 people in my LGM Venezuela group were from. A mr know it all was from Pakistan, he really was a genius that loved to argue and known as the blunt one < just like me. 2 were from Barbados, 1 was from the Bahamas, South Africa, Philippines/Taiwan, Honkong and Beijing, Switzerland/Holland 4 from Australia ( Sweetest people EVER), India, Sweden, Netherlands, Argentina, UAE the U.K and the U.S.

After the politics of trade discussion we boarded our buses and headed to George Town for lunch!The bus count story:

Lola and I sat next to each other.. we were on bus 1, the best bus ever! In total we had 8 yellow tourist buses that took us everywhere, these buses were HUGE they had free wifi ( most importantly) among other.. less important things… oh and a tiny bathroom that no one used. Since whatever was dumped in there was to remain with us for the next 10 days. Each bus fit around 56 people or “scholars”, and each one of us had their own bus count number for security reasons. We were to count our numbers out loud in order till 56. Sounds easy, but not when youre sitting beside your friend all the way in the back and a tiny little girl in front says her number so low that you cant hear her and then the faculty advisor yells out your number on the microphone.. which leads to embarrasement.. and after you yell out your number she makes everyone start all over again from number 1. Number 1 belonged to a Bahraini boy, awesome man who will one day become a very important figure. Number never join

ed the conference so he always had to yell 1 AND 2 in a funny arab ac

cent. Now the accents… those were the funniest and best memories of our bus! It was like laughing therapy. Specially when you have a Columbian that has the same accent Sofia Vergara from Modern Family, has… his number was 21 “twinty waaan” And a Trinidadian accent, he was number 30 “tuuuhhhty” then once in New York Phae yelled out Im so tuuuuhsty trying to mimick him and we just all laughed till we cried. or an Australian one! #10 “tiiiin” we literally spent most of our time on buses trying to get from one place to another.

George Town

Once we got to George Town we were set free from the Fa’s (Faculty advisors) it was only 12 pm and already scorching hot.

The type of heat we have back in the mid east!

The streets were designed with beautiful violet plants and trees. All clean with no signs of plastic bags drifting through the wind < HAH! And the sky was clear blue just the way they photoshop them in ads. We didn’t do much, other than have salads in an Italian place and shop a little. WE left George town’s heat and headed back to the Sheraton where we had another speech about Interacting in the Global Community: Cross-Cultural Communication and Leadership by Dr. Gary Weaver, who’s (old) a professor in the School of International Service, American University. I don’t remember much of what he said but he had a power point of the same Iceberg we had in our LGM’s and was basically saying the same things we said. We were sitting all the way in the back and of course I couldn’t NOT make any comments and be quiet… the usual. To my surprise there was an FA right behind me and I didn’t notice until after we were done. Congratulations on embarrassing yourself. After the speech we got on the buses again and had to repeat the bus count 3 times! It was annoying but fun at the same time, we headed to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial and Thomas Jefferson Memorial. There was a lot of walking to be done and I sure as hell wasn’t too happy about, neither were any of the girls in flats. This was only the second day and we all had our feet covered, designed and camouflaged with all assorted types of Band Aids. Took a couple of pictures here and there, Roosevelt was known for his quotes and there were a couple of goods ones that we’ve all heard of before.

After that memorial we got bored and I did some stalking of my own, I stalked Jaques.. who was walking with that one pretty girl with the most annoying personality and attitude. She was ALL over him and he didn’t mind. So yeah actually before that I found out he has a girlfriend and wasn’t telling any of the girls.. but he did tell one of the guys that hes not ‘getting’ with any girls but hes going to make every single one of them like him! Wow. The cockyness! That’s when I was like AW HELL NO! 3 can play at a game! I hated him but didn’t want to show it. So yeah this girl ( Let’ give her a mean girl’s name.. Naomi) Naomi I actually thought she was my friend back from Kuwait Faye and I was sooo close to calling her except she looked at me and BLANK no expression nothing, so yeah wasn’t her. She actually looked like two girls, Faye and Sarah.. both pretty much known in Kuwait. I then asked a couple of people if they knew who she was and I was told she was from the Caribbean islands.. yeah definitely not my friend.. but imagine her flawless look and tan! She models and had that most annoying American accent, of course every girl would hate her. After we reached the top of the stairs and into the small famous dome where Thomas Jefferson is sitting in his chair we look out straight and notice that the long famous pool in front is no longer there, they had actually dug it all up to change the pool tiles and make them greener. Some people told me there were dead fish lying around in the dirty left over water. SAD how SAD! It was still very hot, all 400 of us sat on the stairs and took a couple of group pictures… then back to the hotel for an LGM meeting to prepare for the Politics of trade simulation. ( the one between Boeing and Airbus).

Then dinner was served ( I don’t remember much) Oh but I talked to Jaques and some other guys and we all wanted to play soccer, except we had no ball.

After dinner all 400 of us had to take the glass stairs up to the LGMs we weren’t allowed to use the elevators because “other guests at the Sheraton need to use them” There was NO WAY that I was cramming myself with everyone else on those stairs taking one step at a time, specially with that knee of mine. A few minutes later I noticed a tall boy beside me doing the same thing and I actually thought he was the one sitting beside me at dinner and I decided to continue our conversation about football: the most uniting topic that is talked about all over the world. We all spoke football. And this is how our conversation went: (Let’s call him Engian)

Me: So yeah we’ll play soccer whenever we get a ball and have some free time

Engian: im sorry what? ( with that perfect british accent)

Me: oh sorry weren’t you sitting beside me at dinner? My god you look exactly like that guy//// (we exchanged names but I ofcourse one second later I forgot it)

Him: so how’d you get here? Are you enjoying it so far?

Me: I actually got here by mistake.. was elected by my history teacher at the beginning of the year.. when I HAD the highest grade in his class. Emphasis on HAD.. im more of a sports person though.

Turns out he was too. We both went up together and both got to our LGM’s late. Ofcourse I just had to ask bodyboy about him… bodyboy was already lovestruck by one of the girls in our LGM. WOW it was all so fast! Who knew things could form in 10 days? I then asked him about Engian and he told me had a gf who models for Victoria’s Secret. Uhhhh wow! Yeah im no homewrecker, so I just forgot about it all and avoided him for most of the trip.

The life changing Speech:

After the LGM we headed to yet another speech. NOT AGAIN! As we headed in one of the FA’s separated Bodyboy and I from the rest of our group and made us sit in the front row. That meant we had to sit through a boring speech without cracking up jokes, sleeping, bbming, tweeting or playing X O on the back of the velvet chairs. The seats started to fill up and a weird mustached boy decided to sit next to me. He lived in the UAE (yay) but wasn’t from there. The boy was a creep.. he kept staring at my legs.. boy’s been in the heat for way too long it must have struck him.

The woman Introduced herself as Amy Merill and started briefly going through all the jobs she had, until she got into that one job she hated and just when she was about to quit she got fired. Thinking it was luck. A few months later she met a woman that goes by the name Somaly Mam. I don’t remember the story very clearly but she also met a small girl who was saved by Somaly mam. Somaly Mam was a sex trafficking victim. The little girl was kidnapped and drugged, raped numerous types a day and given drugs that erased all her emotions then forced her to keep smile through it all. Amy was touched, she wanted to get involved in Somaly Mam’s foundation and help raise awareness. I was all goose bumps and had never heard about Sex trafficking before. Amy has also stated that Sex trafficking was the 3^rd largest issue in the WORLD. I wish I could remember more of what I heard, such as the foundation “Cocktails for a cause” founded by Amy Merill and a friend of hers… the speech was so touching that it made me want to do something with my life, help change the world. Help start awareness in Kuwait, I wasn’t sure if there was such a thing in Kuwait but I wanted to start something that could spread awareness to any other problem that could be similar, maybe something like migrant rights. Somaly Mam has also written a book called “The Road to lost innocence” which could be bought from amazon. The speech was so touching that everyone wanted to ask her questions, ask how WE, THE YOUTH could help solve or prevent this. Bodyboy was sitting right beside me and I noticed he was very touched by the speech too and he mentioned something that I’ll never forget, he told me he was part of a school organization that spreads awareness for this type of situation and they have created or used a tactic or technique that could help prevent it. In his school in Johannesburg they created little red cards that fit into pockets, and these cards were with most of the girls… whenever they think they are in danger all they had to do was raise these cards in public and they’d be okay, someone could rush to them and keep them company or something like that.

After that amazing speech we went to LGM’s and shared our thoughts then our roles for the Politics of Trade were distributed and to be delt with the next morning. We barely ever have free time so 15 minutes later we were all in our rooms ready for room check.