WMOAS

My group in front of the Oraganization of American States building in DC.

This year I had the opportunity to participate in the Washington Model Organization of American States (WMOAS), like the Model United Nations but only for North and South America. Grand Valley represented the delegation of Nicaragua. It was a blast.
We spent the semester in my Latin American Studies class reading about Nicaragua and different forms of governement to help prepare for the conference. As it turns out, we're all rookies and going to the conference was like starting from scratch!
The conference was held at the Fairmont near Georgetown, a super nice hotel and perfect for 300+ college students!
About 30 schools participated and it included students from the United States, Guatemala, Venezuela, Colombia, and Argentina. It was a lot of fun to meet studetns from other countries and speak Spanish!
I represented the Third Committee, its topics include Social Corporate Responsibility and Green Initiatives in the hemisphere. Most schools came up with a resolution to fix a certain problem that countries are having.
The resolutions were read and debated. Some wrote amendments and they were debated, too. There were question and answer periods within each debate and a moderator guided them. If I wanted to ask a question to the delegate of Mexico, I would have had to say, "The Delegation of Nicaragua would like to pose a question to the delegate of Mexico through the Chair." Then the Chair of the committe would guide the question. We could not use pronouns. It was an interesting way to communicate.
There were also caucasing sessions where anyone with a resoluation would try and gain support for their resolutions by speaking with the various delegations.
My favorite part of the whole trip was hanging out with the Latin Americans and seeing the city when the Cherry Blossoms were blooming. It was beautiful and fragrant.