Paola Saldivias Méndez

Transcript

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Loren Caldwell: My name is Loren Caldwell and I'm here with Paola Saldivias Méndez and today is March 27th at 2 .26 p.m. We are sitting in Paola's living room and I'm here to discuss her personal education, migration, and women's leadership story, as well as the role of transnational communities. Pao, thank you so much for being a part of this interview and giving me space and time today.

Paola Saldivias Méndez: Thank you. It feels like my very own first podcast.

LC: Yes, this does feel very much like a podcast and I love it. So yeah, it's going to be really casual, and I just want to learn more about you and your story. So, we're going to start our interview in Ecuador and I'd like for you to tell me about why your family moved from Ecuador to Bolivia and what that move was like for them because I know you're a baby, so just tell me a little bit about that.

PSM: Yeah, okay. So, my mom, she's from Bolivia. My dad, he's from Ecuador and they both met while studying in Mexico. Yeah, I'd love to share that. I really like to share that kinds of pathways because I feel that that really connects me to this international, transnational, global, Latin, just very broad, a global citizen that I feel I am. So, they met and after they graduated, they got married and they moved to Ecuador. And after a few months, which I believe my mom was, there wasn't much community being fostered for her in Ecuador. Not externally outside of family, not internally inside of her partner's family or my dad's family and so lack of community can be very painful, very lonely and so her dad kind of went to get her and invited also his son-in-law at the moment to move back to Bolivia to look for some opportunities there. He also fortunately connected well enough to come with ideas, come bearing gifts, come with ideas and offered some opportunities for my dad back in Bolivia. And so that's how they decided to move back to Bolivia. And they moved from, my mom, she's from Cochabamba, but they decided to, or the opportunities were being presented in La Paz. And so, we came to live in La Paz. I was born in Quito, Ecuador, and my dad is from Guayaquil. And I think it's interesting because, or for me, it's interesting because Quito is very Andean and Guayaquil is the coast. So, it's an interesting element I feel of just ways of being, the Sierra and La Sierra and La Costa are just different. But I feel that I also kind of hold that in me with all this mixture and combination. Yeah, and then that's how they moved back to Bolivia. And in Bolivia, they, we, started living in La Paz and we lived there for a few years. Now that I think about it, I'm telling this story because I have a younger brother and I believe he was born in Cochabamba, but maybe he's Paceño and I never knew. No, but I think he's Cochabamba. I'm gonna confirm with my mom. But yeah, because both of us also, I do know that we did spend a few years of our lives in La Paz. And my mom also met, we call her our nanny. She liked to the very, to follow the very traditional kind of ways in Bolivia. She was like the help, you would say. My mom always saw her as part of the family and instilled in us this relationship of her being just our family as well. Her name is Tomasina. She was a dancer. She had some beautiful facials when she danced. She’s a cholita Paceña. So, the skirts, las polleras, the skirts that she uses were very long ones, her braided hair, we called her Tomi, her name is Tomasina but we call her Tomi. And she is part of our lives up until today and she will continue to be part of our lives forever. And so yeah, we met her, or my mom met her and she started working with us or being part of our family in La Paz and then she moved with us to Cochabamba also.

LC: Thank you for sharing that. I think that’s amazing that you touched on the transnational community aspect because we will definitely get back to that later in the interview. But very cool. Okay, so I would love for you to tell me about the education you received in Bolivia because I know you later on in your life you focused on women and girls’ leadership. Was there a lens that focused on that in your schooling growing up? Or is that something that just came later on?

PSM: I like that. In Bolivia, I went to, I started out in a traditional Catholic school and I was Kinder and Pre-K there and then, no, it was Kinder and 1st grade and it was a school run by nuns. They said it was a Catholic school. And at some point, I know, because it was me and some cousins of mine that were in the school and at some point, there was this huge, kind of like one of my cousins misbehaved and the punishment that they received was blew out of proportion. And so basically it was like we’re not doing the Catholic school anymore. My mom and my dad I believe, but I feel more my mom has always been a big advocate for education, a huge advocate. And so, we were then placed in what we call “American School” in Bolivia and it's a school that’s basically bilingual but really bilingual. We had English speakers as our teachers and I remember when I went to that school, I only had ciencias sociales and music and PE in Spanish and then the rest was in English. So that’s also where I learned English which is interesting because I was what seven years old when I started to read and learn how to read and write in English at the same time as Spanish. So, it’s like having two kinds of worlds in my head since the beginning. And in this school the learning, of course the learning and teaching was very different I would say. And I remember I had amazing teachers. All my female teachers, and also male teachers but I really remember my female teachers. I remember Ms. Michelle, I remember Mr. Jet, I remember Ms. Monica, Ms. Marcia was my social studies teacher, she was amazing. She is amazing and the way that they taught they really made learning fun. They planned activities and of course they had a class of ten students. They could do a lot. They could do a lot and I feel that among all of them, Ms. Monica, she’s actually, we’re still friends to this day. I don’t call her Ms. Monica no more. I call her Monica, she's Canadian, she's marvelous. And I feel that she was so invested in our education and our wellbeing and I don’t know I’ve always been inspired by her. I remember, she opened a lot of worlds for me I feel. She had this initiative of pen pals with another friend of hers who was also teaching in Taiwan. So at some point in my life I exchanged letters with someone in Taiwan. I think that's amazing. She also took us as a class, she took us to our first internet cafe. Which is amazing, she just took us to, when the hour per internet cost 15 bolivianos. Which would roughly translate to $2 maybe but back then 15 bolivianos, bread was 3 for 1 boliviano and you’re talking about internet costing 15 bolivianos an hour. Yeah, she took us there. I remember that we were googling, learning, really opening ourselves to the internet world and I remember it was one of those cafes where everything is connected and what not and she asked us to print something. And of course, kids as we were, did not listen to the instructions, well I did, I always listened to the instructions. Which is also something that I'm so, I feel like I also want to break that. It builds barriers. But anyways I remember that she was like you have to do just one click because it will, it will print it. But of course, we didn’t see anything my classmates didn’t see things getting printed so they clicked on it 20 times and each paper, each print was 2 bolivianos. So, we ended up, or that student ended up paying 50 bolivianos worth of printing. It was just fun and crazy but she opened, she did those activities. She really cared about us not to say that maybe other teachers didn't do that at that, I don't know. I just know that my experience was that the education experience that I received. And then when we reached what 8th grade or 9th grade, the world and the class felt small. We were still in 8 people classrooms and so we changed schools to more of the traditional, regular educational system. Out of this American kind of logic and then to just a national. And it wasn't even national because my other school was Federico Froebel, which is a German inspired kind of us space. And that was also a great experience. I feel that all my educational experience was very marked by alternatives, in a way. Different kinds of, because my school at the time was among the few schools that did not demand a uniform. So, they really kind of respected or embraced self identity and self expression. And yeah, I remember I used to go with sweatpants all the time and my mom was like go get dressed, wear something nice to school and I was like, I’m fine.

LC: That’s understandable.

PSM: Yeah, but now that you mention this, I feel that I've always been inspired by great women in my life showing me the power of learning and teaching and co-creating things. So, I feel that maybe I was always destined to work with women's empowerment. Girls education yeah.

LC: That is absolutely beautiful to hear and I can definitely see how that shows up in your work now and in school now being in school with you. So that's beautiful. Alright so can you tell me a little bit more about your degree in Science and Social Communication from the Universidad Cátolica Boliviana and how you decided on that degree?

PSM: Mmm, how did I decide? I feel I kind of always knew. In my American school, math was also in English and it was complex. It was hard to understand. And I feel we were also very behind. Because when I got to the traditional kind of system. The school in the traditional system I was really behind and I felt at that moment, 18 when you have to decide. Which I find it terrible that you have to decide what you're going to do with the rest of our lives at 18, it's absurd. But anyway, I can, I felt that I was not prepared for a career with math so engineering was kind of out of the picture. Although my grandfather wanted me to be an engineer or an architect. I do love the nitty and gritty of the equations. At that moment I just felt I didn't have my math brain developed and I felt really scared. So, math was kind of out of the question. I do know that I had a debate and I was debating between going to law school, derecho and comunicación social, and I remember at some point I was like what I'll double, I'll do both. And my mom was just like uh huh. And also, something that unfortunate or maybe fortunate, I don't know, happened was that I really wanted to go to the public university in Cochabamba but my parents did not want me to attend the public school because of course being a public school, there was a lot of political movement and a lot of activism and a lot of pause in the school. In the academic year you could start your career, I could start this year but there's no security when I'm going to end it because we didn't know what was going to happen. So yeah, they kind of, they kind of set the boundary there. They were like you're not going to public school. Which felt bad, it really felt bad but then the alternative was, the alternatives were La Univalle where I felt at that point was more oriented towards the digital side of comunicación social and then there was La Cátolica which was more oriented towards research. Because the public school I feel was more oriented towards anthropology and sociology. Those were kind of the axis. At least the informal kind of understood paths that you could follow if you attended whichever. And so, I ended up in La Cátolica and yeah just meeting great people, having fun. I feel that I was very connected to development since the beginning because I know that there were a lot of people also looking at “TICS” tecnologías de comunicación e información. I think in English they’re CIT. I've always loved how they sounded in Spanish. I was never drawn to TICS. I was like, no. I was not, I was not connected to technology at all I feel. Later on, I was like why, why didn't I do this because I really love audio visuals. I really love that production, I was never into it. In the beginning I was not into it so it didn't draw my attention. I was very into development and the development work and it was funny enough, this semester I took a class on social work and one of the assignments was kind of how do we see or what's our perception of a global practice of development for example. And I feel that my practice of development kind of when I got here counteracted or my narrative of development was very different from what I found here. I feel that right now in the US there is this self reflection happening around we don't want to continue to impose our development model. And so, when I got here it was an interesting conversation to have. A lot of critique towards development but I was like, I love development. I've been working in development. That’s me, that's what I do. And with these months I've come to understand that the way I've done development is very different from the way it's been perceived. Or the way it has been crafted. So, to use some of the terminology, I have done development through indigenizing, the indigenization of development. I've always adapted the resources and I feel with this assignment for social work, I was able to kind of go back to my undergrad experience, my college experience and see what I learn. What was nurturing me at that time intellectually and I was nurtured by a lot, by several theorists from Latin America, from this kind of counter, counteraction. Thank you for your model, this doesn't work here, we need to look at it from our own perspective. Luis Ramiro Beltrán, and then Freire and then all these conversations and there are many more names that I don't remember. But I remember Luis Ramiro Beltrán because he's from Bolivia and he was also a theorist, a scholar that said the communication of development looks different from this side of the river. From this side of the practice, we need to follow our ways. That's the only way that it will be meaningful, it will have an impact. We need to bring it what we understand. So that has been the vein that has kind of nurtured and informed my intellectual growth. Yeah.

LC: Amazing, amazing.

PSM: Thanks.

LC: Thank you for that. And I was going to ask how this transitioned to development but I think you answered that very well. So, I know that your work has a gendered focus and I know that you've always had this reverence and respect for women in your education but what led to that, to the desire to focus on women in that work that you do and have that be an integral part of the work that you do?

PSM: Mmm sometimes I feel, let me just phrase this to go into my answer. Sometimes I've been having this reflection and conversation with myself and the world and sometimes I feel that I chose this life and many, very often I also feel that this life chose me. And when it comes to the work around women or with women and around women and femininity and gender, I feel it was a very organic kind of path that I followed. When I started working in development I took the opportunity that presented itself, and at that moment the opportunity was with clean technology and clean cookstoves. That inherently got me in the gender scope because you clean cookstoves, women, yes and while I was doing that project in Bolivia, I met a wonderful woman, her name is Geneveive, Gena, and she was, she was kind of signed to, we got a grant from the organization I was volunteering with. We worked on an application, we got a grant and it was a grant to develop a research of, we call them as agents of change and what was the role of the cookstove value chain in the Andean region. So that gave me an opportunity to kind of explore some of the work of colleague organizations in Colombia, in Ecuador, in Peru, in Bolivia, and to contact colleague practitioners as well. And understand what was the role that was both as part of the system, that was working in clean cookstoves and the development machinery. But also, how it was being practiced, indigenized on the ground. I met Gena and Gena was working in Cusco, in Peru. She was doing her own thing in terms of a project that she had, I did and designed and was implementing with girls in the rural areas. In the rural area of Cusco, we clicked while doing the work in the project that she was supporting from the granters side, she was kind of the support contact for the project and in the project that I was doing with clean cookstoves there was an educational piece. So, we had, the organization not only delivered the technology but there was also an educational piece of yes, the technical transmission of how to use this technology or how does it work, whatever, But also in terms of wellbeing and self care and entrepreneurship for the women. I worked kind of developing that material or co-developing, just enhancing a little bit of what was already there and we were given a scholarship to work in empowerment. To be trained as empowerment facilitators and so I was able to again translate and indigenize all of this content and theory and bring it back so it made sense in the rural Andean context in Latin America because we had our training here in Rhinebeck, New York. ( ) It was like okay, how does this, what can I get from this. And it was interesting because it was a whole journey from getting it from Spanish, sorry from English to Spanish but also getting it from Spanish to Quechua. And I didn't do that, oh my god I wish I could speak Quechua, I don't, I need to learn. But I did have a colleague that I worked with. She is amazing. Her name is Guadalupe, I haven't heard from her in a whole but very strong woman, very assertive, so we co created the material. I kind of did all the mental part and then she was like, we used to sit down and I would explain to her this is the message that we want to get through and then she'd be ok this makes sense if we phrase it this way. Because, in our reality, in our Andean, in our Quechuan reality I don’t have the words you're asking me to use. So it was a beautiful exercise of really, doing that work with her as well as learning with her and just kind of empowering each other developing our agency to be able to also give that experience to the women and then with Gena that translated to sharing that experience with girls and so yeah that's how, that's how I landed there and again that's why I say I feel that it was a very organic and this life chose me. Those moments I was just making the most of the opportunities, the professional experiences I was receiving. Perhaps not even reflecting on how much of the other side, I was just happy I had a job. I was just happy I had a job, I was happy my job was allowing me to travel. That's also one of the main motivations that got me into travel, I was like I get to travel with my work. I’m sure you can do that in a lot of careers but for me at that moment I was like if I become a development practitioner I get to go to projects and go to sites and meet people so yeah that moment I feel I was just kind of sharing experience and learning from them as much as I was teaching them, But it was, it was having a job. And now it's more like woah that job was not just a regular 9-5.


LC: Sounds like an amazing job. An amazing experience of being in community with other women.

PSM: Yeah, it was, it was.

LC: Thank you for sharing that. Alright and so I know that at some point you moved to Peru, what sparked that move and what was the work that you were doing there?

PSM: That move was, I needed a physical move. I was going through a rough patch in Cochabamba and I was feeling very disconnected. Our project with the research in the Andean region with the cookstove was wrapping up and a lot of personal, questioning and just moments and changes and shifts and they were planning, I had been invited the year before I moved. So, I moved to Peru in 2016. In 2015 I was invited as a facilitator to the leadership institute that Gena had happening and had going on in Cusco. So, I was invited to give, it was seven, a week-long workshop with the girls and I was invited to give one of the sessions for one day. The one on empowerment. And then I remember that there was a problem, there was some kind of situation and the facilitator for the next day was not going to arrive so they invited me to facilitate the next day. And I was sure, I'm her and I'm enjoying this. Let's do it. So that was 2015 and by 2016 I was invited to give the entire workshop. I was invited to be the main facilitator for the workshop and of course I said yes. And then that happened in January/February of 2016 and then by June, it was May/June they were also thinking there had been a spark of interest from someone. A local organization or a school in Peru, in Cusco and they were kind of thinking who is going to do this facilitation, Because they are all the people that founded this project which then became my organization, Visionaria, they are Rotary volunteers so of course they were thinking what, I can't come, I'm working, I remember we were on a zoom call or whatever the platform was at that time, I don't think it was zoom yet in 2016 but it was like I’m available if you need people on the ground I’m here I’m just literally next door. I am in Bolivia, you need someone in Peru, I can do it. So, the invitation or the opportunity was three months, let's go there, let’s be there for three months, let’s explore what's available, what does this opportunity look like, let's have a trainer of trainers. Let's set the ground. And three months turned into six years.

LC: Wow, crazy.

PSM: Yeah, I got there, the trainer of trainers was hard to have been because we wanted to give the trainer the importance of context and contextualization. We were like okay we have this amazing workshop, we know people are interested, we want to do the workshop in June. And people were like well, but June is fiestas del Cusco, no one is going to come to the workshop, everyone is very busy celebrating Cusco. Okay then let's do it in July, but in July son las fiestas de Perú. It's going to be very hard for you to get people during las fiestas de Perú. We were like okay then let's do it in August I guess and that kind of extended the three months, then it grew into four months and then I was like if I'm going to be here for a while I might as well get a job. So, then I got a job as a teacher in the school where we were doing our trainer of trainers and I was able to, to be a teacher of 20 wonderful 10-year-olds. They were amazing, they taught me so much. I was so nervous because I was their math teacher and their English teacher. I was like oh my god. I feel that at some point I was like beautiful children. If you leave this class just feeling loved and cared for and you feel a sense of resilience with the work that I did with them, I will be glad. You probably won't take this class being math geniuses but you're definitely going to leave with a sense of self assurance and worth and we're going to work on your leadership and that's kind of what I did. And yeah then 2017 we had more of a sense of what we were doing with the organization we started working, recruiting people. I shifted positions from doing the work and facilitation to doing more of the administrative work of running a team or an organization or trying to put together an organization. So, my roles definitely shifted and my experience shifted. But it all continued to revolve around girls' leadership and then the girls said that they would love to have these experiences in class and they felt that their classmates, both boys and girls, would benefit so much from having the conversations we were having in the leadership institute. So that's when we decided to have it, to make a shift in the way that we were doing our project and just make a curriculum and try to take it to schools. Some of them tried to take it up the initiative and then we encountered bureaucracy to be able to have it in schools, it needs to be approved by the regional authority. So, we engaged with the local ministry of education and yeah that's what we have been doing for the last four years. We had a huge shift in 2020 that we wanted to start trying it out, and then the pandemic hit and so yeah things, things got, things changed along the way.

LC: Very very interesting. I did not know you were a teacher at some point so that’s really cool.

PSM: That was my second time teaching. The first time I became a teacher, the first time I became a teacher I had five kindergarteners. Yeah there were 6 of them but they were 5 years old. I remember I used to use the SpongeBob SquarePants in Spanish of course whenever I wanted them to get ready--estamos listos, sí capitán estamos listos. And we’d go around, it was fun.

LC: I love that.

PSM: It was fun to be with them, I learned a lot from kids. And then my 10th graders, they were kind of in this phase where they were not children anymore they were, they were not little boys, they were just boys. They were not little girls, they were just girls. On their way to becoming young women, at 10.

LC: Right.

PSM: So yeah, I had a beautiful time with them. I miss each one of them. Yeah. But I think education has been a little bit in me.

LC: Yes, that is amazing. Alright so we are going to switch gears a bit, it’s still about education but I know that you are currently enrolled in the Global Studies Master’s program and you’re a Rotary Scholar, which congrats again, that is amazing. So why this program, why North Carolina, why the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill of all places? Yeah.

PSM: Again, life choosing me, life telling me this is what we’re doing now. I feel I've felt often lately that whenever I'm struggling in terms of what I am doing. Where am I, where is my head, my heart, what's happening. I really go back to this sense that I have of life being ok Pao, now we're going to, now I'm going to, I see her, I see life as a big woman, huge. I have this image of life, I humanize her of course. This big entity just telling me okay baby now I'm taking you here. She just likes to place me, she takes me from one side to the other. She's like now you're going to be in La Paz, now you're going to be in Santa Cruz, and that was with family, and then when I started doing my thing, she was like now you're going to be in this part of the Andes and now I'm going to take you to this other corner of the world. And sometimes when I resist, when I'm trying to grab control of life, I just, it's so hard that when I remember that it's more important to let go, I feel that she's there kind of looking at me like why are you worrying if I'm going to place you in whatever corner, space life mountain I feel that you need to go to, why are you worrying, I feel that. So, I felt that that also happened with UNC, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. I applied for the Rotary Peace Fellowship, there are seven centers that you can attend within the fellowship. And you can apply for whichever center kind of aligns more with your experience, where you want to go. There’s one in Brisbane, Australia, there's one in Queensland, UK, there's another one in Japan, there's another one, well here, the Duke/UNC and I know there are a couple more which I don't remember their names. Sorry Rotary. There's another one in Sweden, yes. So, when I applied I had a previous conversation with some fellows, with as much as I could get on the phone and one of them was kind of, the conversation with him was very helpful. Because he was like hey, if this is your area of focus of work and experience then you might want to go to this center. This center is very useful if you do this, this center is great if you do that. And so, in that exploring I applied for the center in the U.K. and I applied for the center here in the U.S. When you apply for the U.S. because it’s the only center that works in two universities in parallel, you have the option of choosing your first, your preference one and two. I remember I chose MIDP, so I chose Duke and I chose it because MIDP is very focused in public policy and when I applied I was like this is a great experience to learn something new. I’ve never, I've always been on the side of the implementer in the past few years before the pandemic and a little bit during the pandemic also. I was very invested in terms of how do we use everything that we're learning as a grassroots organization to inform authorities. They're making the decisions but we're living on the ground. How can we share these learnings that we’re having so that they make more, they make decisions in a more informed way with actually what’s happening here. So, I was very invested in that area or that aspect of my work as a practitioner and so my mathematical reasoning is one plus one equals two. I am interested here, the center does this, of course I'm going to apply for this program. So, I applied for the MIDP as number one. I applied for the Global Studies as two and what really brought that, I did not really understand what Global Studies was and I don't feel bad about sharing this anymore because I felt so ashamed at the beginning, but as I have conversations with you, with the rest of our colleagues, peers, and friends they're like yes, it's hard to know. No one knows what Global Studies is. It is kind of what you need it to be, it's what you make out of it. And so, it was just a great opportunity to understand at least, that's what brought me here. This opportunity to give my lived experience and my anecdotal knowledge, give it a framework, a theory, to be able to explain it. To be able to share it. To be able to expand it. So that was my purpose. That was also my purpose for applying for the masters. I felt like I had all this field experience which felt great and I also felt the need to broaden my work or what I could do and the possibilities and to be able to do that in our formal, capitalist, very I need your diploma kind of world, I needed the diploma, I needed that title. I felt that yes, I need the title and I might as well get in but in the process, I might as well enjoy it and the Rotary fellowship is just this amazing, beautiful community of yeah just fostering dream making really. So yeah, I think that more of choosing North Carolina, I feel that North Carolina, Chapel Hill and UNC chose me really. They brought me here.

LC: I really hope you’re having an amazing time. You all’s Rotary cohort seems awesome. I know our Global Studies one is but yeah, it seems amazing.

PS: They are wonderful people, yeah.

LC: So, I think you touched on this a little bit, taking your anecdotal experience and having the theories, having the framework so, the things that you learn here, do you plan on taking that back to Bolivia, to Peru or do you plan on staying in the United States for a while to work?

PSM: I feel that, I feel that the Master’s was a long-held dream and I feel that now that I am living the dream, I am in this process of crafting my next dream. Or I don’t know if it's my next dream but it’s definitely what’s the next path we’re going to follow. When I came here, I had a plan. It was mapped out, it had characters in it, it had timing, it had a timeframe and what’s left of that plan, it's me that’s left of that plan, it’s me and life. So yeah, I had not considered a PhD until I got here. Which is something that’s on the horizon. Which also feels nice, it feels big because one side of me is, ugh I could do a PhD here and another side of me is like well why don't we do a PhD back in Argentina or Mexico or Bolivia, and so that’s, that’s definitely something to think about. I definitely feel that I will be kind of processing that I do feel that a big call that I have in my heart and in my body is to continue to work and explore my Andean roots. So, in terms of work I definitely would really like to go back to the Latin American region, to the Andean region and continue to work from there and for there and with that space and I also foster a lot of ideas and dreams about bridging the global south. I have that phrase with me, I've been holding that phrase for the past maybe three years and I just feel it more and more. Just a sense of connection between, many of us that are in this process of decolonization and this process of sovereignty. This process of bringing our worlds into a more embodied existence. A more grounding reality in a way. I feel that many Latin American countries but also countries in Africa, countries in the South of Asia, where I feel a huge wave of discomfort that also finds some comfort in south identity. In just going back to the roots and remembering who you, who we are, who we were, where we come from and just reconnecting with that. And I feel very inspired and moved by that and when I talk about or when I say bridging the global south, it’s about really fostering this communal sense of life going back to roots, going back to rituals, going back to symbols, going back to nature. Yeah.

LC: Thank you. Wow yeah that was amazing, thank you for sharing that. We’re going to talk a little bit about what it’s like for you here in North Carolina. Do you find being, because I definitely still consider you to be a leader in our cohort, on this campus, do you find it harder to be a leader here in the United States compared to Latin America, do you find yourself being valued just as much here. How has that been for you?

PSM: That’s a beautiful question, that’s a huge question. And I feel that for me, funny enough this is something I was also kind of talking about in therapy this morning, I do feel valued. I definitely feel valued. I feel that I have been blessed and fortunate enough to feel valued in every corner that mother earth has decided me to take, has decided to take me. And I feel it’s, I think it's a beautiful question because I think it's more of a going, an inner question to answer. I feel that in terms of being valued or my leadership here, at the end of the day, it really comes back to how I feel it in my own either self assertion or self doubt. I feel that the transition has been more of an inner exploration of my own leadership. I feel that I've had this process of a lot of acknowledgement from the exterior but a lot of doubt in my interior. So yeah, I've also been this has been a wonderful moment and journey to explore where my leadership stands and I feel that that’s one of the other reasons of wanting to kind of strip away or really walk away or I’m going to use that phrasing now what's in my head right now. But just what's in this system of competition, of binaries, you're either good or bad, you're either successful or a loser, this very, a lot of competition that underlies leadership and just reconnecting with the sense of a communal leadership, a sense of a mutual, a growing, a supportive kind of space. Yesterday at the concert with Rhiannon Giddens and the three other beautiful women that were with her, they were so, oh Loren, they were magnificent, they were so powerful. I was really so inspired by the way that they found … also Rhiannon also mentioned at the end something along the lines of creating community but having to check your ego at the door. And yesterday it was just such a beautiful experience of seeing how this community gave space for individual explosions of greatness on the stage but also had the ability to come back and be a community and be individuals in a community and just this flow, of being, yeah just this very natural flow and possibility of, of shining as a lone star but also being part of a constellation and this back and forth and this energy of holding and being held. That was so wonderful and so, when I think about my leadership, I also feel a lot of transformation in terms of, it’s interesting but, kind of shifting and drifting apart from this Westernized competitive sense of leadership, hierarchical sense of leadership and coming back to this sense of just being a leader in your life, being a leader in the change that you want to see, the community that you want to form, which is funny because now that I mention it, it's what we worked on the girls in the leadership institute. We talked about these different ways of leadership, because you can be, the leader is not always the one on stage talking with all the spotlight because we're all so different. Because an introvert does not want that but they are still leaders, and extrovert is a leader and your leadership is something that you bring with you as long as you give yourself the possibility to learn from your life and share what you're learning and yeah so its shifting, it shifting, it's definitely morphing into something that feels more connected I would say. Yeah.

LC: That is again, so beautiful and I think that is a perfect place to conclude our interview. I feel you shared so much about women's leadership, about your role in that and building other women up as well and being in community with them. I just think that’s a beautiful story to tell. So, thank you so much for that and is there anything else you’d like to add before we conclude today?

PSM: I guess just this sense of vulnerability. Today in the lecture that I participated, I attended, this sense of vulnerability, this sense of sovereignty. It was interesting, kind of this desire of unlearning to learn but from other spaces and maybe unlearning not to learn something new but to show what’s already there and I feel that that’s so powerful. I feel that that’s so beautiful and in terms of women and leadership and the work that I’ve been doing, I came with kind of the certainty that I need to have answers, I needed to again, this very, a leadership based in competition, this leadership based in hierarchy and I’m, when I understood that when I felt this as a learning space and as a learning journey, I was able to let go of my need to have the answer and that is so liberating.

LC: Yeah, it really is.

PSM: Yeah, it’s just opening, whatever I don't know is just an opportunity to continue to explore. Yeah, just that I guess.

LC: Thank you, thank you. And I hope you continue to do that during your time here at UNC and thank you so much for your time today.

PSM: Yay!

[END OF INTERVIEW]