A reflection of sorts:
In the days since the trip, people have asked me so many times how the trip was, but I have not been able to accurately capture the experience in words. I try to show a picture, and since it is worth a thousand words, it is better, but it still doesn’t do any justice to the experience. The beauty was uncapturable, indescribable, and if you’ve never seen the vibrance of the rainbows, or felt a cloud pass through you, incomprehensible. I find myself staring at the person with whom I’m talking, knowing whatever short summary I gave didn’t even begin to do the experience justice.
But it was so much more than visual beauty. At least in my case, having almost never been outside of the midwest, and never out of the country, I was like a dog in Bass Pro Shops. I couldn’t begin to process everything being thrown at my senses. I barely slept because I didn’t want to miss a thing. No matter whether it was a sunset, sunrise, a cat in the house, a toucan at the birdfeeder, or a conversation being had at the table, I didn’t want to miss a thing. While I know this is impossible, I think I did a pretty decent job, although I did in fact miss the toucan at the birdfeeder. Sure, I didn’t get to see a macaw, or a monkey, or even a sloth, but the sun setting behind a mountain across the gulf as I stand overlooking a city, a waterfall, and more mountains than I can imagine was a feeling I will never forget.
I guess sometimes you don’t need to be able to tell how the experience was as long as you can talk about how it made you feel. If you can describe how you felt, that says more than what actually happened that made you feel that way in the first place. After all, you could talk to each of us that went to Costa Rica and get a completely different account of the same events based on our previous experiences and the extent to which they made an impact on us.
The point of the trip was to pop the college bubble. I may be biased, but I have no trouble saying we succeeded. I wasn’t sure if this trip would be like some I’ve been on where there was an unspoken focus on the experience outside of the service, but as we sat at the table in a foreign country that we had never been to, playing cards, discussing how we could take the things we learned and apply them to the Springfield community, I knew it would be different. We were, without a doubt, having fun and enjoying the experience, but we were certainly engaged in the service as well.
When the wifi went out unexpectedly for the majority of the week, we were forced to engage further in our current environment. We were able to spend more time building relationships with each other, but with the other volunteers that were also staying with us, too. I enjoyed trying to find aspects of the meals I could take to improve my own cooking and looking at the long lists of firsts I had accomplished on the short trip. Even looking past the easy things, such as flying, leaving the country, or ziplining, I found many things. I made a concerted effort to try everything that was served whether I was enjoying Gallo Pinto (at every meal) or realizing that I still didn’t enjoy pineapple when it’s fresh. I went from rarely drinking coffee before the trip, to drinking black coffee by the end. Oh yeah, and I JUMPED OFF A TARZAN SWING! (That’s still surprising to myself)
I learned so much on the trip, many things I will never forget. So when it comes to telling people how the trip was, I have started saying, “Unbelievable. I am so glad I went.” While this rarely satisfies someone’s curiosity, it’s the most accurate statement that I could give them.
And then I tell them about the zipline, because as a fellow traveler described it to me, “That was gnarly!”