TrIBES this year was a great experience, as it was my first year going on a trip with a few new faces and a lot of upper classmen. For the past six days, I had a greater sense of purpose. Which allowed me to see value in others and collaborating with my group members to make things better. During the trip, one of the skill I grew in particularly was collaboration. It might seem like the easiest thing to do, however, I believe that collaboration increases the possibilities of attaining a higher degree of effectiveness or efficiency in work.
Because our TrIBES was the Inner Mongolia West to East, there were a lot of chances for me to develop my collaborative skill and support or respect others ideas.
There were a lot of times where I demonstrated my collaborative skill and how I was challenged by it. The process of collaboration which I experienced starts with goal setting, followed by awareness, development of trust, cooperative activities, group challenges, and application.
This process was a really important part in some of the activities we participated in. One of the activities that we did on the first few days was the tree planting activity. I remember I did my tree planting with another girl in my grade, Sophia, because there werent enough holes at that time. The directions were to first dig a hole deep enough, then grab a tree, put the tree in the hole, and pact the soil in so the tree stays stable. My partner and I took a long time struggling to dig the hole deep enough for the tree to fit in. However, we were aware of the problem and listened, communicated, and trusted each other. I felt that the hardest and most challenging part of the tree planting and using my collaborative skill was getting the plant and putting it in the hole. As for a really weak person, like me, the tree was really heavy. We were supposed to walk back to the main area where all the trees were, take one, and carry it back to where we were supposed to plant it. The distance wasnt that far compared to the dessert walking, but the most challenging and painful part was walking through all the spikes and weeds that were sticking up. So there was Sophia and I, carrying the heavy tree walking through the spikes and weeds. We used communication to figure out who will carry the plant in the front and back. We also warned each other when walking to watch out for ropes that we will trip on.