It seems as though the beginning of my group’s journey with this project started not that long ago, but in just a few days we will depart from Pittsburgh and travel to the Port of Spain with a set of deliverables and, even more importantly, a list of questions to be answered. While in the country we will be visiting the organizations that we have partnered with, Nature Seekers and the DORCAS Women’s group. In a short time, we will be one step closer to achieving our goal, the first component of which aligns with Nature Seekers Turtle Warrior brand, and aims at utilizing expansion and the promotion of the brand to create a marketing strategy. Supplementary to this, our group will be exploring the potential in a relationship between both Trini Organizations. While it is my hope that our group flawlessly executes our deliverables and prepares useful recommendations for both partners, it is necessary that we must first consider what challenges might impact the group’s delivery. 

The challenges that the group will be faced with will, most commonly, be a direct result of different norms embedded in the Trini culture. In country, it will be our group’s mission to serve as a consulting voice and conduct business with both of these organizations, offering recommendations and providing insightful research. However, with these recommendations the group will need to form beneficial relationships. Forming business relationships with clients in general can be a hard task, but it will be even more of a challenge knowing that the cultural norm surrounding relationships in the United States places business before friendship, and in Trinidad their relationship building tendencies embody exactly the opposite of this norm. It is for this reason that the group’s first challenge could most likely be faced in our ability to form successful relationships that are on a deeper level than we may be acquainted with. To provide an example, and one that was mentioned in our class discussion, it is common in the United States that one’s introduction of themselves will be their name directly followed by their job title. In countries such as Trinidad however, it may be more common to introduce your name and then what your hobbies are or who your family is. This example provides the differentiation between how the US values business titles more highly over characteristics that are seemingly more personal. The distinction that must be made here is that while our mission is grounded on business dealings, our exchanges will not be successful if we are not adapting to their cultural norm surrounding relationship building. 

The differences that exist between the cultural norms in US and Trini culture also exist in other forms which could potentially pose challenges to the team. One of which is the differences that reside in the context of each country’s culture. These cultures exist in two forms and both exhibit opposite tendencies which pit a low context culture against a high context culture, and are explained in Erin Myer’s book The Culture Map. The book reveals that the United States on one hand tends to be a low-context country, while Trinidad is deemed as high-context. These variations of context explain why American culture is more direct and straight to the point relying on spoken language, while Trinidad relies heavily on underlying messages, body language, and tone to convey their points. Speaking more specifically to our country and what this means for us as a group, these differences in culture could present miscommunication between what a client tells us versus what they actually mean. While miscommunication is possible, it is also important to consider how lack of understanding of their normalized high context culture impacts relationships. Components of relationship building consider who each party is and how each party can benefit. We need to know how to communicate with the level of context that the country identifies with in order to build these relationships successfully.

Aside from some of the challenges that directly impact relationship building and client interactions, it is essential to consider differences in scheduling and time construct that may challenge the group. After much group discussion regarding time as a potential challenge for our project, our group has become familiar with the concept of “Trini Time,” as well as what this means and how it will challenge us. I think the most referred to in class example that we discussed puts this challenge into perspective and accounts for situations that specifically deal with business encounters such as meeting times. For example, arriving 30 minutes after a meeting was planned to begin is not uncommon, and it is considered part of the norm to not follow scheduled times exactly. This concept of “Trini Time” is especially true in the rural areas we will be visiting, such as Matelot.

The last challenge that I think the group will face, but also something that I think will be a personal challenge for me, is utilizing my active listening skills to their greatest potential. I think often times it is true that people study abroad and time passes by so fast that they fail to learn as much as they could in the time they are away. This too could very well be a challenge for the group because we will only be in Trinidad for a week, which is typically a short time to be abroad. Being aware of our surroundings and being able to actively listen and engage will be essential to our growth as students, but also to the success of our project and our project outcomes. Our ability to be active listeners could also be impacted by factors such as thick accents that may make it harder for us to fully understand what some people may be saying. But simple solutions such as asking them for clarification or having group debriefs after meetings could help us make sure we grasped a full understanding of all our clients discussed. While active listening is something that may be a challenge for the group, I think it is fair to say that becoming a better active listener is a personal takeaway that I may gain from this trip.

         It is true that our group will face challenges, but I think it is especially relevant that these challenges will help us grow in both our ability to work on a team, and also to grow on a personal level. I know that up until this point, since beginning to work on the project, I have personally been able to more effectively utilize my transferable skills. Having to prepare to discuss with clients and make sure the group is maintaining deadlines has been a challenge, however it has helped me become more organized and has helped me recognize the implications that adaptability and flexibility have on real world projects. Transferable skills are something that I have personally been able to improve throughout my time in college, but I know that the service learning component of this trip will help me develop these skills even more. There is something to be said about working with international clients and the challenges that the group may face given that we run into some of the challenges mentioned earlier. It is these challenges that we experience participating in a service learning trip that help to make us grow. One of the articles assigned to the class titled What Should Be Learned through Service Learning, touches upon this same idea, that service learning can benefit students in so many ways. Being able to work with nonprofits, we are helping these organizations achieve their goals, while simultaneously we are learning. One of the biggest takeaways of this article and also of a service learning experience in general is that they support reciprocity, and reflect the importance of teaching students through exposure to real life projects and clients. Working with these clients we will be helping the nonprofits, but we will also be gaining invaluable experience that is unmatched in other programs. It is important to reflect on these implications, and recognize the impact this experience has on our clients and our skills. My expectation is that after this trip I will develop more of these transferable skills that I can apply even outside of client interactions. 

It is also my hope that travelling to Trinidad will help me become a more agile communicator, especially with people from different cultural backgrounds. Through research on the country, my group’s culture smart presentation, and from what I have observed from interacting with the client so far, there is a very noticeable difference between our communication styles. As someone who is pursuing the Certificate in Leadership and Ethics at the University and who has an interest in International Business, I am interested in improving my ability to communicate with people in different countries who experience different cultural norms. Whether they speak the same language as me or not, I want to become a more agile communicator and understand other queues outside of verbal communication. I think that communication challenges that I face on this trip will prepare me more for my ability to efficiently communicate in other study abroad opportunities. I believe that this trip will contribute to my desire to become a better communicator, and in turn improve my leadership abilities.

In order to fully grasp the impact this service learning project will have on the group it is pertinent that we recognize the potential challenges that our group will face, why we will be facing these challenges, and then reflect on what personal learning we may gain from this experience. The purpose of this reflection is to identify what these challenges are to ensure that they do not negatively impact our group’s project deliverables. The challenges and personal learning takeaways that I listed in this reflection, I feel, are the most relevant to the cultural implications and norms that the group will experience in Trinidad. The success of the project is dependent on the groups ability to overcome and work through these challenges and present strong deliverables that meet the client’s expectation. By utilizing our learnings from both in class discussion and independent research, I am confident that our group will successfully overcome the challenges that we will be faced with.

Moving forward with this project, I am beyond excited to work with both Nature Seekers and the DORCAS Women’s group. In a week from now we will be in the country beginning our week long immersion into service learning, experiencing all Trinidad has to offer.