For this post, I'll be reflecting on the past week, August 4th-10th, the fifth week of my LiA project working with Picacho Con Futuro in Comuna 6 of Medellín, Colombia. 

This week was the second half of the Feria de las Flores, where on August 9th, there was the famous Desfile de Silleteros or Silleteros Parade where local farmers carry massive artistic floral arrangements on their backs. The image on today's post is a floral arrangement from the parade! I would highly recommend going if you ever visit Medellín, but just beware that it'll will be very, very crowded!

What went well?

As our final presentation is in 2 days, we've made significant progress on our final presentation. For my personal tasks, I was able to change and update the café activities to reflect the conversation I had with Adrián, the director of Picacho Con Futuro, last week. Additionally, I talked with Adrián even more and, through our conversations, I designed four final logos, choosing one as our final logo for Barrio Mío. 

As a group, we modeled the new interior and exterior design of Barrio Mío using House Flipper (shout out to Mathilde) to see the indoor and outdoor spaces in 3D. My teammates also created a in-depth menu, a fully fleshed out pamphlet that summarizes our proposal for Barrio Mío, and even created a separate page on Picacho Con Futuro's website for the café. It's been really amazing to see everything we've been working on in the past 5 weeks come together. I've also been amazed at my teammates' unique talents and strengths, and I am so grateful to have done this project with them. 

An important note to mention is that Barrio Mío won't be built immediately, meaning that our presentation is very much just a well-researched suggestion of what Barrio Mío could look like. Adrián and the rest of Picacho Con Futuro are very much able and likely to edit our ideas to how they see fit in the future.

On a much more personal note, this past week I celebrated my birthday in Medellín! I purchased a cake at a local bakery in Laureles (it's called Repostería Pepo's Cake Laureles -- sooo so good), and got dinner with other Laidlaw scholars. I am just so grateful to have this opportunity to spend my birthday in another country, surrounded by students from other countries, universities and cultures. Truly, it is a birthday I will never forget!

What could've been done differently?

In this past week, I definitely could've improved on our time management. However, this isn't just about learning how to do our work earlier, which is still a huge part of it, but also learning how to manage our time to include both hard work and fun. With it being the second to last week, there is an increasing pressure to both get our deliverables finished, but also to enjoy Medellín to the fullest. I wish I could've managed my time between the two better, but you live and learn, and that's what new experiences are for: learning!

What did I learn about Leadership?

Five weeks ago, before I even met Adrián and when we had barely even started on our four café visits, I wrote that I felt frustrated with the slow pace of my LiA on my first LiA reflection. However, as I continued exploring different parts of Medellín, I also reflected that “being a good leader is also having the ability to understand the context that it is requested within” and, with that, learning to be patient rather than seeking immediate gratification. This week, I feel like I have seen the other side of this patience and finally come to understand what that means.

It was amazing to watch the café we had been working on for the past several weeks take shape, but even more meaningful to see how so many different experiences and conversations came together to form our version of Barrio Mío. Not only do the activities reflect things I did as a kid, the website reflects James's coding background, the pamphlet shows Pippa's drawing background, and the 3D interior design shows Mathilde's design background, but the drinks and food on the menu reflect the wishes of the women from “Mujeres Con Futuro” and “Proyectando Sueños.” The games reflect the kids' wishes for more English games, while the interior design reflects what we took away from the various other cafés all around Comuna 13. In a way, our proposal for Barrio Mío has become a living representation of us, everything we've experienced in Colombia, and the community of Picacho Con Futuro, making it a true cultural café.

Looking back, I can now fully appreciate how the moments that felt slow were helping us build toward something much larger than I could see at the time. Seeing our final presentation come to life has been a powerful reminder of how taking the longer, less immediately gratifying route is so worth it, especially when you eventually get to see where it leads.

Adjustments and developments for next week?

It's crazy to say that I only have 1 week left, and more specifically 3 days left, in Colombia. Time has flown by so fast, but we aren't quite finished just yet. In two days, we have our final presentation, where we will be presenting everything we've done, from the café visits around Medellín, to interviewing different social groups within Picacho Con Futuro, and our final designs for cultural café Barrio Mío, to our peers, program coordinators, and members of Picacho Con Futuro. We still have some finishing touches we need to do, such as practicing what we will be saying as it will be fully in Spanish, but we've done the bulk of the work this past week. I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to wrap up this LiA on a positive note!