Life-Changing visit to a Costa Rican Escuela

Many of our new experiences in Costa Rica were filled with breathtaking views of the volcano or challenging 4km hikes up the steep road known as La Trocha. These were mainly either physical or mental accomplishments and were solely for personal gain. However, if I were to pick a  highlight of the trip that was unique to all the other experiences, it would have to be visiting the kids at the elementary school near La Fortuna. It was unique because it was more of an emotional experience and we had the opportunity to help others.

The school happened on the third day in La Fortuna which was our last day there. I and many others were having a hard time deciding on whether to go to the caves or to the school because, even though they were completely different trips, they were equally as cool! I decided to go to the school and I can definitely say I don't regret it!

SO ANYWAYS...
The look on the kids faces when we arrived at the school was priceless. They were actually all SMILES! When we all saw them we were like 10x more excited then we thought we would be! To start off our visit, we played a few warm up games to get them familiar with us. This included a name game which was hilarious because we all had trouble remembering and pronouncing each others names, but after a few tries we managed to get to know most of the kids. Some of them were so shy at the beginning, but by the end of the games they were STOKED. Another cool thing we did was we had them read a spanish book to them. I was partnered with Juan. He was actually the CUTEST kid. We hung out for the a lot of the visit which was too much fun!

Juan and I playing some soccer :)

AFTER the classroom games, we headed outside to play soccer and a bit of ultimate!! They enjoyed it sooo much and were really good a soccer! After the big soccer game of ninos vs ninas, it was finally time to give them the school supplies, clothes and other cool gifts. They felt so much gratitude when they heard they could grab 10-15 items. They even sang the Costa Rican national anthem to us after which was awesome! You could tell they were really happy we came. One girl was like in love with Lauren and after the visit she came back with a flower and a card. kind of romantic. We had a long walk ahead of us so we decided to say goodbye after a couple of pictures. During the walk it was pouring rain and long but we didn't care that much!

It was definitely a new experience for us to get to know some kids who lived in maybe less fortunate conditions and help them out a bit! Here's a picture of the two groups that we hung out with..

I definitely want to do something like this in the future. Something about getting to know kids and putting smiles on their faces is an unreal feeling. Oh ya and I met a kid named Carlos which was sweeet.

PURA VIDA AMIGOS,

Carlos :)