Today was the third day of Global Citizen Year’s Global Launch. At Global Launch I have been exposed to a caliber of diversity unlike anything I ever imagined. I could go on to explain all of the interesting learning we have been doing about the world around us and how we interact with it, but instead I would just like to share one time that I was able to appreciate the diversity of my Global Citizen Year cohort.
The first time that I realized how incredible it is to be a part of something as large as this was on Monday night. After dinner, I walked back from the dining hall across the street in the perfect California weather. No one was in the dorm lounge so I continued out into the courtyard to find people. I ended up sitting down at a picnic table outside of the dorm talking with a group of people. I don’t really remember what we talked about, but it most likely had to do with which country everyone was headed off to and what their apprenticeship entailed. After a few minutes, someone came out of the dorm with a soccer ball. After gathering some of the people from the picnic table and waiting on a few more people we started playing a casual three on three game. As the night progressed we gradually picked up more and more players before eventually moving to a slightly larger field. At some point during the latter part of the two hours of soccer that we played, I realized something incredible about the game. In our six on six pick up game of soccer, we had no less than five nationalities from all across the globe and as many languages spoken.
Though this was a small sample of the 32 countries represented in my cohort, I was making a connection with all of these people at once. I don’t think that there could have been a better way for me to spend the end of my first full day with Global Citizen Year. I am very excited to continue connecting with people from all around the world as I travel to Ecuador next week!
