Costa Rica whole other world for students

Two weeks in Costa Rica surrounded by tropical rainforest was icing on the cake for Aimée Pelletier.
It also made her itchy–to travel that is.
“I think this was a jumping off point for me,” said the 18-year-old Fort High student, whose post-secondary goal it is to earn a degree in ethnobotany (the study of how plants and culture are linked).
“The rainforest is so biodiverse,” she enthused. “Five metres in front of you were 100 different species of plants so green, and lush moss coming down from the trees–that’s something you don’t see here in Canada.
“I’d seen pictures of Costa Rica in books but [in reality], it blows you away,” she added. “I start university next year but I think I’d like to take a year off between my first and second year to travel [back to the rainforest].”
Pelletier returned last week from Costa Rica (located in Central America between Nicaragua and Panama) along with 11 other senior students from FFHS, 13 from Rainy River High School, and one from Atikokan.
The group, which also included three teachers and one parent as chaperones, had been in the small country to participate in an environmental project at a nature reserve called “River Watch,” organized by Canada World Youth.
Billeted out to host families in the village of Quebradas, in the southwest corner of the country, the students spent four days clearing vegetation and boulders by hand for a crop field.
They also helped construct a log stairway up the side of a mountain, and mixed cement by hand for the foundations of two buildings–all in the 30 C (86 F) heat.
“[Costa Ricans] have a strong connection to the land and a strong philosophy of protecting their environment,” said Pelletier. “The work was definitely really tough and physically demanding but really rewarding.
“At the end of each day, we could see the results of what we’d done,” she added. “It was really visual [and] having to work together all the time built good team work skills.”
During the two-week stint, the group also visited a coffee bean plantation, Manuel Antonio National Park, and Arenal Volcano, which is active.
Keith Gilbert, a science teacher at Fort High, was a chaperone along with Al McManaman. Gilbert said while aspects of the trip were challenging to the students, he hoped the experience would be a stepping stone for future world adventures.
“It was a wake-up call for travel,” he reasoned Monday. “As we were landing [en route], I heard one student say ‘that’s the first palm tree I ever saw.’
“It was quite exhilarating to see them experience things for the first time.
“Even seeing a [tropical] beach can give you an appreciation for other parts of the world because we don’t have beaches like that in Canada,” Gilbert argued. “It broadens their experiences and makes them appreciative of what they have back home.”
That rang a bell with several of the students, including Brendan Cumming, Melanie Halvorsen, and Courtney Calder, who found renewed gratitude for hot water, a varied diet, and the English language versus Spanish after a taste of life in Costa Rica.
“It gave me an appreciation for my own culture,” said Cumming, 17, whose host family did not have access to hot water and cooked outside on a wood stove.
“They washed all their clothes by hand and every meal had rice and beans in one form or another,” he recalled.
“I had quite a bit of trouble understanding Spanish,” said Calder, 18, who admitted she repeated ‘no comprendé’ fairly often. “I spent a lot of time looking in the [translation] dictionary trying to learn how to say something.”
“I used quite a bit of hand signals and enhanced emotions to get my point across,” noted Halvorsen. “I even tried speaking in French!”
The Fort High group plans to hold an authentic Costa Rican dinner and slide show sometime next month to showcase their trip.