Service & Community Immersion in Costa Rica

My expectations for the trip were that I would get to further practice my Spanish, meet and interact with Costa Ricans, experience new culture, scenery, while being pushed out of my comfort zone. I would say this trip definitely met these expectations and certainly exceeded them in interacting What gave me the greatest sense of accomplishment was being able to see the progress that our group made on the construction projects. It was very rewarding to see how much we helped build/improve. For example, when working in the concha, the kids would often stop by, and it was very rewarding to see how they excited they were about our painting it. The highlights of my experience were the home-stays where we got to stay with a local family. I also enjoyed interacting with the community while working in it because I got to use my Spanish and experience the vastly different culture. In general I think there was a pretty good balance of time spent on each activity, but sometimes there was a bit of a lack of adventure activities. I would have liked to have done more exploring of the area in San Jose de Rivas.

I went into the program hoping to improve my Spanish (specifically speaking) while also having fun and helping a community, and both of those goals were met and exceeded! I'll admit I was not so keen about the independent projects before I completed mine, but wow, doing those interviews ended up being incredibly rewarding in terms of learning Spanish and learning about the community, and also a whole lot of fun. Highlights included interviewing members of the community, hiking to "La Piedra", swimming in the river by the village, talking with Macho (village work leader), surfing and going to the beach at Playa Uvita, horse back riding, and white water rafting! I felt there was a great balance and I don't remember thinking we spent too much or too little time on any activity.

Going into Putney's Costa Rica community service trip, I expected the leaders to be inviting and caring towards everyone in the group. I am happy to say that Maddy and Bryan have both succeeded in doing so and throughout the trip, I was able to talk to them about anything and feel as if I was talking to a very close friend of mine. Going into the village and helping out with several service projects gave me the highest sense of accomplishment. I'm not going to lie, going into the village the first night I was very overwhelmed but during the time being there with the little kids and helping out the community I began to learn that you don't need the finest things to be happy, all you need are a great group of people. One highlight of my trip was white water rafting. Through this activity, I became close with several other people within the group and remain to communicate today. The second highlight of my trip was being able to see the smiles on the kid's faces when playing with them. Not only did the little kids hang out with us but some of the older kids would talk to us, and we would get along well even though there was a language barrier. The last highlight of the trip was the traveling day into the village. Although the ride was very long, I was able to look out the car and appreciate the beautiful scenery surrounding me. I think the trip was balanced out well.