Spain/Morocco: Group Dynamics
One important thing that I have learned about traveling in groups is that it is critical to find out how to take time for yourself. Each person has their own level of “gregariosity” and sometimes it can be hard on trips with other people to figure out how you can take time out for yourself. Someone is always having a new idea what to do. In our introduction meeting we talked about the difference in perceptions about personal space in different cultures and with different people in different cultures. This concept doesn’t only apply to physical space. Everyone needs a different amount of mental space. In past trips I have been the kind of person that wants to see everything and go all day. If the group can be convinced to go somewhere then, I wanted to go, because I felt like otherwise I would be missing something. Now I realize though that taking time for yourself can make a trip go from average to extraordinary.
On another note, today we had a beautiful meeting with the Young Arab Policy Analysts International. It was a very beautiful meeting. We started with a few presentations and ended up with a vibrant discussion between the two groups that I think everyone really enjoyed. Their were many important similarities between the goals and mindsets of our two groups, and I think we all benefited not just from the content of the discussions but from the intimacy of them because unlike the other meetings this groups was composed of our peers and it was a conversation in which we both hoped to learn from each other and we had similar goals and values.