My time in Costa Rica came to an end this week. No more leaf cutter ant highways to carefully step over. No more bus rides up steep, winding mountains. No more falling asleep to the sounds of tink frogs or waking up to monkey howls. No more night hikes or crossing waterfalls. No more breakfast, lunch, dinner, and all that in between with some of the greatest people I’ve ever gotten the privilege to know. Just as I was starting to believe that this experience was real life and not just a dream, I was forced to accept a new reality in which this life-enriching experience was now ending. I have learned so much on this trip. Not only about biodiversity, climate change, environmental policy, planetary health, and animals, but also about myself and what it’s like to witness the human experience around me. So I take this opportunity in my last blog to reminisce and reflect on my human experience in Costa Rica.
Kevin and Debby:
On the plane ride into Costa Rica, I found myself seated next to this kind couple from Texas on their way with their three dogs to see their son who lives in Costa Rica. The gentlemen, Kevin, struck up a conversation with me upon hearing that this was my first time in the country and my very first time abroad. We continued to talk for the remaining hours of the plane ride about Costa Rica and its beauty. He told me all about how they fell in love with the culture of Costa Rica: the connection with nature and the land, the kindness to others, and the chance to live a pura vida lifestyle. They have traveled to many places and loved Costa Rica so much that they decided to make it their home. The country and the people had such a profound impact on them. Before even landing in Costa Rica, I had already fallen in love with the country through the eyes of someone else. If this place was able to touch the hearts of such a special couple, I knew it was going to be special for me too. And it indeed was. After a month of learning and living throughout the country, it was time to go home again. The day we left was a day of bittersweet tears and reminiscing on all the memories we made together as a group. We did everything we could to soak up every last second of our time together at this place. Again, it didn’t feel real that I had to say finally say goodbye to the people I have been spending every waking moment with and to the country that made all those moments even more beautiful. As I was in this state of limbo and after watching several friends board their flights and then waiting for my own flight to whisk me away, I looked up and saw Kevin, Debby, and their three dogs walking by. I ran up to give them a hug. It was so crazy that out of all the people in this world and during all the seconds in a day, it just so happened that I saw them again. Kevin asked me if my experience was all that I hoped for and as wonderful as I thought it would be. I told him that it was so much more. I told him that I learned and saw so much and that I had the luck to do it with such a special group of people. I enjoyed every second of it. Having seen Kevin and Debby brought me out of my sad state. I realized that these memories and people aren’t going anywhere for now. I felt like all that had happened and all whom I had met were meant to be. Some things are just coincidences, but some things are meant to be and will have a lasting impact just as this trip had on me. And these connections I have made can last a lifetime. As well as the lessons I’ve learned. Everything I’ve learned, especially from the people I’ve met, I will take with me back to the states and in my future to make this world a better place just as I had hoped to do. My Costa Rican experience doesn’t end in Costa Rica – this is just the beginning and there is so much more waiting for me.
Rosella:
While Kevin and Debby embraced the “pura vida” lifestyle, I met someone else who was not fond of the saying. One night in La Selva, my friends and I met a woman named Rosella who was in the cafeteria while we were up late playing a card game. Kate started talking to her and soon we all became entranced by what she had to say. Rosella was a beautiful woman inside and out. She was here at La Selva leading a program for underprivileged youth to reconnect with nature and the arts. Rosella had studied the arts including classical dance in America and Europe I believe before returning to Costa Rica to help those in need. She has seen a lot in her life: poverty, abuse, addiction, illness, the list goes on and on. She works hard to provide sanctuary for at-risk teenagers struggling from these afflictions along with providing resources and opportunities to experience new things. She does this by connecting them to art and dance. She teaches them that have worth and can be successful. They can escape their situation though even she believes that it may be impossible sometimes. I remember her exclaiming, “Not everything is pura vida, we have problems!” This changed my outlook on Costa Rica and life in general. Costa Rica is not exactly the pure life everyone thinks it is. It is not always just an escape into nature and away from reality. I am not here to escape my own reality though I know I had originally looked at this experience as a way to do that. Global problems still exist like social injustice and climate change. People like Rosella are doing what they can to provide solutions and provide love, but they cannot do it alone. It is up to us, the future generations to make meaningful, lasting change. The main thing I learned from Rosella that night was to learn as much as I can so that I can return that to others and leave the world a better place than how I found it. That is and has always been my goal and I see now that it’s possible.
The Ngöbe tribe:
Looking back, I have learned many things that can help with that change I wish to see in the world. I learned how important it is to integrate native, indigenous voices into education, policy, and conservation plans. They have many answers, especially answers concerning the preservation and appreciation of natural habitats. However, due to continued racism and ignorance, they have no ears in the government willing to listen to them. I learned this from the Ngöbe tribe. They need open hearts and minds who will fight for them in order to gain recognition from the government so that they can teach their culture in schools. If they don’t teach their culture to the children, it will die. This is something I have always known about indigenous tribes but I have never witnessed in person. I had remained in my ignorance and privilege while these groups of indigenous people have been fighting for recognition. I have never been able to witness the urgency and rightful anger come directly from a tribe member as he expressed his hardships and challenges to simply provide books for children to learn their own language. Even as I witnessed his emotion, I was able to sit in complacency as the translator cherry-picked terms that wouldn’t offend us as white people (meaning colonized people as Wendy informed us) being that the teacher from the tribe was angry at white instituitons for keeping his culture at bay. The teacher, Alexis, had every right to be angry and the translator had no right to make us feel comfortable in that situation for fear of being uncomfortable. It was Wendy who told me that we should not be scared of being uncomfortable because being uncomfortable with the way things are is what brings about change and being comfortable is what keeps things rooted in the past. By cherry-picking words, it was another way of continuously silencing indigenous voices. It was time for us to speak up. My classmates decided to put together a fund that would help the Ngöbe tribe obtain resources for their classrooms. We raised over $700 just from 20 of us. We also plan to create programs that connect IU student to the Ngöbe tribe so that both groups can work together to give the tribe the recognition they deserve from the government. As a future scientist committed to conservation and global equity, I plan to make indigenous voices heard.
Jacqueline:
Among the voices that are often silenced include the voices of women. I learned more about the inequality that exists in sustainable agriculture after visiting and talking with a woman named Jacqueline. Jacquelin is the daughter of Don Roberto who had owned the coffee farm for decades. Her father had recently died so now, after studying Anthropology in France for some time, Jacqueline took over her father’s business. She is trying to downscale the farm and only foucs on selling locally. She had told us the advice her father gave her, “The business is good but the land is more important.” Because of this, she farms sustainably and protects the environment. She showed us the plants along the paths that control flooding and how the coffee plants require shade so they maintain native plants. She told us about how she had been experimenting with two varieties of coffee plants – one was tolerant against a disease while the other was not, so now they decided to transplant the disease-tolerant species. She asked us if we had any ideas for solutions on how to increase yield and take advantage of the new water source she found on her property. When asked if she has ran into any problems while maintaining the farm in a sustainable way, she said, “The first problem is that I am a woman.” As a young woman, she has been met with much sexism in the farming business. Farmers don’t recognize her efforts and she doesn’t get much support in the farming business. However, she still persists becuase of everything her father taught her. She is trying to break boundaries. Jacquelyn said to us, “My voice is not as strong, but my example is.” She is so incredibly smart, innovative, and passionate. She truly inspired me to not only become part of a community of women committed to sustainability but to create one. I hope I can reach back out to her and revolutionize a movement for women committed to conservation and sustainability through sustainable practices such as agriculture. I hope my peers and I can come back to Jacquelyn with solutions to her problems and solutions to global inequity in conservation movements.
My friends:
The last humans I want to talk about while evaluating the human experience in Costa Rica are the friends I made along the way. I entered a new country not knowing who I would be learning and living with for an entire month. I hada tough year prior to this adventure that had me questioning who I was as a person and what kind of person I wanted to be. I had lost touch with myself and my passions and was looking forward to this experience as a way for me to develop into the person I strive to be and to gain even more passion for a life in science and conservation that I have always wanted to make for myself. I was hoping I could start fresh with new people and new perspectives. I didn’t realize just how much these people would have an impact on me. Every person in my group, including Dr. Libby and Dr. Wasserman, was just absolutely incredible. Everyone was so smart and passionate and wanted to learn about life as much as I did. We were all different but we all had common goals and aspirations. We all wanted to build a better world for the future. I learned a different lesson from each person: how to be yourself, how to ease anxiety, how to let go of control, how to be okay with making mistakes, how to be optimistic, how to approach difficult situations, how to expand my worldview, and so much more. I came to Costa Rica to learn about biodiversity and ecotourism and climate change, and although I learned about all that and more, I actually ended up learning more about what its like to be human. I learned more than I could have ever expected about myself from these experiences and from these people I met along the way. Saving the natural world is not just about conservation, science, climate change, or biology. It’s about the connections you make with people, too. I know these connections will last and will turn into something great. Every one of us was great on our own but we are even more wonderful and powerful together due to the connections we were able to make. I have a great feeling that we are going to do some amazing things in the future. We already have.
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