hands down the best summer of my life

During the first half of my trip, I lived in a tiny community of 20 people called Macho Mora (mora=blackberry or “berry” for short). Macho Mora is located next to the tallest mountain in Costa Rica so it has amazing views of the valley, waterfalls, colorful sunsets. I lived with a host family with one ten year old girl and one sixteen year old boy. Additionally, my two Amigos partners lived in the same community, and we all worked on the same project. Our project was to paint an entire community center inside and out. With community input, we selected a bright blue color for the walls and red for the columns, and we also designed a mural that had important symbols of our community such as trout, waterfalls, and flowers. Finally, we added our own handprints as well as the handprints of the past volunteers in Macho Mora to illustrate the collaborative effort in our project that will hopefully benefit the entire Macho Mora community for years to come.

For the second part of the trip, my partners and I, as well as other Amigos volunteers and Costa Rican youth, traveled to Marino Ballena National Park located on the southern Pacific side of Costa Rica. If you look up Marino Ballena on Google Maps, you’ll see that it’s in the shape of a whale tail which is where the park got its name (ballena = whale). We spent our time in Marino Ballena cleaning and repairing the visitor trail.. In our free time, we would play volleyball, slip ‘n slide in the rain, swim in the ocean, and dance to Spanish reggaetón.

Over the course of my trip, I learned to be flexible, collaborative, and confident in my Spanish. I love having so many connections with people not only from all over the United States, but also from Costa Rica. I will never forget my experience because it was probably the best summer of my life. Thank you, AMIGOS!