Summary Essay

As many of you may know, I sent my application for Pacific University Optometry while I was here in Costa Rica, just a few weeks ago. I had to write a third essay so I wrote it on my experiences here in Costa Rica. I thought it summed up the trip quite well so I decided to include it in my last blog entry. Well maybe I´ll write one more later wrapping up my experiences with my thoughts on being home again. But here is the third essay I turned in regarding my experience here. PS if you hate it I dont want to know...my future is riding on it haha.

`Sitting here in my hostel in San Jose, Costa Rica my journey is coming to an end. I waited to write this final essay until I could share my most recent experiences which should help to clarify the type of person I am and hopefully will help you get to know me on a more personal level.

Going into my senior year at Weber State, it was clear to me that rather than going straight into optometry school it would be best for me to take a year off as a break from school. This was not due to an issue of being unsure about optometry school, but rather a desire to take personal time to possibly travel and enjoy myself before settling into a career. My friend, and travel companion, and I juggled many ideas of the type of adventure we wanted to have in our time off. After a documentary served as a source of inspiration, we decided we wanted to spend our time and efforts volunteering.

Six months later we found ourselves on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica protecting nests of the endangered turtle species: Lepidochelys olivacea, or Olive Ridley turtle. We arrived in Costa Rica on August 2nd of 2009. We have been here eleven weeks now and are set to return on October 29th. We just finished the volunteer portion of our trip, but we set aside some time to travel and enjoy the scenery of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Panama as well. Coming up on the ending of our journey, I realize how amazing this experience has been for me. It has had moments of amazing discovery and exhilaration, but has also proved very challenging and trying at times.

In the beginning, it was overwhelming to realize that it would be three months before I returned to the comforts of my home and family. It was a very different environment from home, which had evident culture shock effect. However, I stuck with it and simply had to open my mind to the changes and find the right mentality for the adventure. That is when I started really enjoying myself.

The volunteering we finished was for a nonprofit organization based in Costa Rica called ASVO, or Association of Volunteers. They started a brand new project called Romelia in Montezuma, Costa Rica. Actually, it was on a remote beach which was a thirty minute walk from Montezuma. The land is privately owned and was donated by the daughter of the family who had previously lived on the land. There, we lived in a two story, very open, bungalo type of building. The living quarters had no hot water, and in fact no electricity. We lived by candles at night, slept under mosquito nets, washed our laundry by hand, and ate rice and beans for all three meals. It may sound like rough living, but it did not take long to appreciate the care free nature of waking up to howling Howler Monkeys in the trees, going for a daily swim in the ocean, and frequently utilizing the hammocks hung in the living quarters.

Of course it was not all just lying around. Being a new project, there was a lot of work to be done. They were in the process of building trails through the forest, bridges over the streams and outlets to the ocean, and starting a greenhouse where they would grow their own fruits and vegetables. All of this was in addition to the turtle aspect which was the basis for the project and consumed the majority of our time. The main project was building a hatchery for the turtle nests because without the hatchery it was very difficult to protect the nests from the tide, predators, and nest poachers. To build the hatchery we had to dig out the sand in the designated area and replace it with clean sand, build a large sandbag wall to protect it from the tide, fence the area, and build a hut for volunteers to sit under while watching the hatchery. This was a long, exhausting process which was ony completed after about two months of grueling work. During all this time, our nights were spent on patrols which involved walking the beaches all hours of the night in hopes of finding turtles in the process of nesting on the beach. When we found nests, we relocated them to safer places high on the beach, or in the hatchery once it was finished. During the time I spent volunteering, I was able to get very involved in the process. By the time I left I was capable of finding a nest with only the guide of turtle tracks, digging it up, digging an acceptable artificial nest for relocating the eggs, tagging the mother turtles and taking measurements on their size, as well as measuring and weighing the eggs. It was amazing to feel like such a vital part of an organization giving back to nature, trying to undo the damage done to this species by the human race.

Volunteering was such a rewarding experience on so many levels. I have had the chance to meet other volunteers from all over the world who also want to make an impact in their world. I found people with such interesting outlooks on life, and fascinating stories of where they came from and where they were in their life. I have also had the opportunity to further develop my spanish, speaking with locals when the opportunity presented itself. In the end, this experience may not directly pertain to optometry but it has been really important to my development in this pivotal time in my life and helped me appreciate so many good things in my life.´