GVI was the best experience of my life!!

This trip was the most amazing and impactful trip and experience of my life! When 14 of us strangers went from my university to this little, beautiful town of Quepos, we came back with a family and a whole new perspective on life! We learned to value nature, learning that even with the little the people of Costa Rica have, they put in so much effort to taking care of where they live and protecting their precious animals. Now we all recycle WAY more than before and even prevent using straws so we can join the impact! We learned to value friendship and family, seeing how welcoming everyone was there; with our daily village lunches after our hours of work, we not only came to an amazing meal yet were taught how to make it by our wonderful host. With this language barrier, you would think that we would have a hard time communicating with them, but their hearts were so open they knocked down this barrier and let us into their families. On our free time, we enjoyed the most amazing parts of the world I didn't even know existed, and it led me to this desire to travel the rest of the this world. But, most importantly and above all, my connection with the children we helped was the best part of the trip; even with the lack of education for many of the kids, they were still so smart and wanted to learn everything we were teaching them, showing me that people with so little can be the most grateful humans and even go and teach you more than you taught them. I am hoping to be a pediatrician one day and this trip solidified that I definitely want to be around kids when I am older. And I cannot wait to travel with GVI again and experience another trip of a lifetime!!