“Save the Sea Turtles” and So Much More…

Dear CALUE Service Break Blog,

My name is Courtney Ingersoll and I am so excited to be on my second service trip. I stared off the trip meeting the wonderful group I would be spending ten days with. Their names were Jacy, Jerylme, Taylor, Cassidi, Maddie, Rebecca, Audrey, Miranda, Taylor. We spent our whole first day in airports, and after a long delay we made it to San Jose, Costa Rica.

Today we had our orientation day. We met our guide Monica along with our coordinator Darrel and Jessica. It was a pretty slow day of presentations; but I did learn a lot. Some interesting facts that we learned about Costa Rica was how they have 6% of biodiversity in the world. They are also a very prosperous country, which creates many jobs for people all over the world.

My favorite thing that I learned was that Costa Rica HAS NO ADDRESSES!! They give directions based off what is near the destination. “Near the football field go 300 Km, turn left go 30 Km, and it is the pink house with the white fence.” This was the example given to us. Talk about cultural differences!

Darrel ended one of the presentations by showing us a video called, “Letter to My 20 Year Old Self.” The basis of the video was, that everyone needs to travel, see new things, and experience cultures. This video truly inspired me because that is one of the things that I am doing with this trip. I want to continue doing this for the rest of my life, going to new places and serving communities in different ways.

I am so glad TTU CALUE is giving me this experience and I’m excited to travel to Junquillal tomorrow to help sea turtles!!!

– Courtney Ingersoll (CALUE Service Breaker)