This week I went to Pamplona Alta in San Juan de Miraflores. We had an amazing time building time building stairs for the inhabitants of the community so they could reach the upper houses in the mountain. I was the man in charge of placing the cement in the structures as well as levelling the land. I felt really proud at the end of the day. Even though we were relatively as small group, I consider that we got a lot of progress done. We finished nivelizing the terrain as well as cementing half of the stair route. This is probably the last Bridges trip of the semester but I am looking forward for the following year.
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The feeling that I had last week when I saw my Video coming to an end was just not describable. My whole semester work was coming to an end. All the work, the effort, the lessons learned where wrapping up in one single piece of footage.
I could feel the satisfaction when selecting the final clips to put in the video, as if the semester had just passed away in a blink of an eye. I hadn't realised the experiences that I had lived in this project until these final moments. Reflecting back I can honestly say that this has been an unmatched experience. Through this video I have embraced the importance of making relationships. This project wouldn't have been the same if I would have opened myself up and talk to professionals. This is what I have enjoyed the most in the IA, the fact that I have met so many people in the outside that have guided me through my project. I can honestly say that I will miss this project and looking forward to show my video with my peers. Have you ever given so much effort to a project than when finished you feel a sensation of self accomplishes. As if all the sweat, tears and long hours of dedication really meant something. Probably along the long way, you felt like quitting. You couldn't deal with the pressure, making irrelevant excuses that made you believe you are not capable off. Finally at the end, you were able to achieve it and produce work that you were proud of.
A humble man once said, pride is the most controversial feeling there is, only those who take it with humbulness are the ones that really feel it. I mean the controversy with pride is that some people do not know how to use it. When you accomplish something and you are proud of your work, you obviously want to share it. But if you become so obsessed with it and use what you have achieved as a way of showing that you are better than the rest. Then you will be showing a false sense of pride often referred as false pride. I can conclude that pride, is an oriented me feeling. Most people will debate it as if pride is synonym of arrogance and as a way of showing how superior you are. For me pride is divided into real pride or a false pride. Real pride being a humble way of showing what you have done. The best leader is the one that leads by example. In some sort of way, I always keep hearing this phrase. Maybe because of the multiple times Ive watch the movie Invictus or in my intense reflections that I have with myself about leadership.
But how do you lead by example? In paper it looks easy, being a great example to others. But think about it, it is way more that setting an example for others. It is taking responsibility for your actions, knowing that you will be in the look of others. Leading by example is living a life in which people will follow you because of the choices you take. Think about your everyday decisions. Thought your day you have a combination of simple decisions with very hard decisions, depends on how your day is going. Now add the pressure that you have a bunch of people depending on those decisions. I mean in some way they will be influenced on the decisions you take. This week I have been really reflective about leadership. Specially thinking about when is the best moment to take a lead and how to lead by example. It is never to late to take the lead specially in times of trouble when you have a group of people that do not know what route to take. It really takes time and dedication to be a leader, to take the lead requires you to stand up and be proactive for a change. Everybody can be a leader it just takes time to become one. One of the most valuable lessons my parents have thought me was about humility. They told me the importance of treating others with respect even though they might have acomplished less than we have. In other words never think or act as if you are greater than somebody else.
The fact is it is easy to say but it is really difficult to act, specially when you are participating in the social aspect of your life. From my short existence I have already seen humble leaders. I enjoy being in a soccer team where the more experience players help those who are just starting. For example if they make a bad pass, instead of them shouting at the less experience players, they are encouraging them to keep on playing and telling them how to improve. I mean they can get angry at you for a while because you are not focusing on the game but at the end they will always say something that will make you feel better. Another clear example is when you are hanging out with a group of people. There will always be that person who won't talk you you simply because you are not worth talking to. Or even worse, the person that only opens his mouth to say something negative about someone because that will make him feel better. No one is perfect i this life, everybody makes errors. Reflecting back, there have been a lot of times where I haven't show humbleness and acted if as I where superior. Being humble is not something that you will convert from one day to the other. It requires a new attitude and a new way to see the world. Last Thursday Emilio and I went to Bembos to interview a Taxi driver. This was the first experience interviewing an actual taxi driver for the project. What I realised was even more amazing.
I mean I have already learned not to assume, instead loom for the actual facts. What I found out on Thursday is that you don't know somebodies opinion until you have listen it. How many times it has happen to you that you think you know what a specific persons opinion is towards a topic, but instead it ends up being completely different. hen interviewing Javier which was the taxi driver I thought that he had a specific point of view towards informality. In fact I thought that he was going to give us a 20 minute speech about the huge amount of taxis in Lima and how there is so much competition that is frustrating him. In fact he started by saying that everybody is free to have a job. I found it really ironic because I was almost sure that he would complain about how the competition in his job is affecting him. Since he started as an informal taxi driver he had some empathy towards the informality in his sector and thinks that the government should be doing more to help them. One of the things that stood put form me was that he told me that the most important thing in this job are the way you treat a client. Since insecurity in the streets of Lima is at its peak, the only was of making a client feel more secure is by the way you treat them. This job is all about the client. Lately, Ive been thinking about poverty in Peru. Reading and informing myself more about the topic Ive liked Bill Gates conclusion about my country. Peru is not poor, it is not capable of.
I mean we have tons of resources that could convert us into a highly developed country, but we are not using them in a effective way. Corruption, bad politicians, internal social conflicts, low investment in education, informality and other factors have influenced in the Peruvian economy. We have the resources but, we need to use them well. Last week during easter break I had the chance to travel to Chile. I never thought that this small trip with my family would completely unveil my family history.
I remember we were dining in a fancy restaurant near the hotel we were staying in Puerto Varas, Chile, when my dad started talking about the small town of Valdivia an hour and a half from Puerto Varas. He said that the cousin of my grandfather was the owner of what started as a small brewing company in Valdivia. I had already heard about the Kunstmann beer company in family reunions and its connection with the Telge family. Eager to learn more, we decided to visit Valdivia. Since we hadn't plan this trip we had really little knowledge about Valdivia, just what my grandparents had told us about my cousins living there. The first impression that we took from Valdivia was that it was a relatively small town in Chile populated by German immigrants. I mean there was nothing to see, but as we started entering the town we arrived to the Kunstmann brewing company. They had a restaurant in which we had lunch and then we decided to take the tour. In the tour they told us about how beer was made and a brief history about Valdivia and its brewing tradition brought by the Germans at the middle of the 19 century. The fun part came when we saw the picture of the current owner Armin Kunstmann Telge. In fact he was the cousin of my grandfather and uncle of my father. What was even more amazing was that when we were leaving the tour, we actually had the surprise that Armin Kunstmann was outside and it was really fun to have a chat with him. This kept me thinking about how little I knew about my family history. As I started to investigate more about how did the Telge family arrived to Lima. I realised that The my great great grandfather arrived to Valdivia during the middle of the 19 century in a boat full of german immigrants. There he had 3 children one of them was my great grandfather who came to Peru in search of my great grandmother. The other two stayed in Valdivia. Sometimes it feels quite good to know where you come from. This week I have learned a really valuable lesson on assumptions. When researching, part of my research is based on assumption rather than facts.
For example, this week when pitching our project to Mr. Bonnici the answers for the questions that we were having were assumptions that we where making based on the research that we had done. Neglecting the fact that we were just answering so we could get the project approved. Basing your life on assumptions is one of the worst things you can do. This is due because when assuming you are lying to yourself. You think you know the actual facts but instead you are making yourself believe that you know everything about a certain topic and at the end it can harm you. It is also very harmful when developing an investigation. I realised this on Thursdays class, because of the assumptions that I was doing about my project I realised that I couldn't ask more questions since I was making assumptions about the answers. To have the best project you need to ask yourself a lot of questions in order to get the best overview about the topic and know all your facts. There has been a lot of things going on these past weeks in my live. One of them having to due with colleges and course selections. I mean, I've had to give a lot of thought to my still undecided future, having meetings with the school counsellors so they could try to guide me to decide what I want to study in college. Visiting different universities around Peru to see which fits me best and having university related conversations with different people to see their point of view have stressed me out.
Last Thursday Mr. Bailey, the school counselor came to talk to us and gave us a small chat about our college applications. One thing from the chat really stood out to me and has become a major game changer in my life. Ive been raised with the idea that I need to go to an elite university in order to be a successful person. Through this meeting I have slowly started to realise that this ideology is not necesarly true. I am starting to believe that I should go to a college that best fits my learning characteristic and that makes me happy. I mean if you can get into a top college and manage to be happy on it, good for you. But if a top college would not give you and amazing learning experience, then there are hundreds of exelent schools for you. I still have a long way to go and more time to think about choosing the perfect college. |
AuthorMatthias Telge, Peruvian. 16 Archives
May 2016
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