I am excited to announce that CALUE Service Breaks has began their first International Service Break! We are a group of 5 TTU students (Kennadee, Ahalee, Jesus, Alyssa, Taylor) and 2 CALUE staff members myself (Jacy), and (Jerylme). We couldn’t be any more ready to dive into everything Costa Rica! We started the day off by departing Lubbock around 12:30. We had a slight delay but nothing that affected our connecting flights. We made it to DFW in plenty of time to eat a quick lunch and prepare for our 4.5 hour flight to San Jose, Costa Rica! The flight went smoothly and our group seemed to have a mixture of those who slept, read, or watched the flight movie, “Hidden Figures.” We arrived in the San Jose Airport and I immediately felt my hair begin to poof, humidity is in full force here in Costa Rica but it is also the perfect temperature in the evening so you won’t hear any complaining from me! It took a minute to figure out how to fill out the paperwork in order to go through customs but we finally passed with flying colors and made our way to the exit. Here we met some of our Costa Rica partners, Mauricio Gaberto (Director of ACI, who will be leading our two day orientation), German Monge (our tour guide for our entire trip), Katherine Kenyon (ACI volunteer), and Oldemar Alvarez (our fabulous driver)! We had quick introductions and made our way to a very large mall to have a quick bite to eat…Mauricio assured us that after this “fast food” meal we would be getting the “real” Costa Rica experience, but since we are Americans we must love fast food! He also said this will be a great topic to discuss later about stereotypes! We got back on our short bus to go to our “orientation camp” location Monte Campana. We are excited to see the city in the day but so far the nighttime is beautiful. From our rooms we have a great view of the lights of San Jose. We will be here for two days before we travel to Junquillal Beach to begin our service work with Sea Turtle Conservation Project. I am excited about this International SB, and I hope that our readers will visit this blog to hear from our students about what they learn and experience! Until tomorrow have a great night!
-Jacy Proctor