Student Takeover: Bella S.

I’m Bella, and I would first just like to say that traveling abroad has been one of the best experiences I’ve had in my life! It has been truly amazing being immersed into a whole different culture than my own and being surrounded with other students who are driven and passionate just like I am! Studying abroad is unlike regular high school in that it has given me loads of hands-on experience every day to help me learn and grow. 

Actually living in a different country and getting directly involved in a variety of activities has been so exciting and eye-opening! My sister, Lucy, and I are extremely grateful for everyone who has helped to make this trip and program possible for us. Really, it means the world to us.

Our second week in Monteverde Costa Rica has been just as engaging and exciting as the first! On Monday morning, we took a short hike to Monteverde Natural Cosmetics, a local company led by a family that makes natural health and beauty products out of raw materials derived from nature! On this day, my peers and I learned about Ecosystem Services, or in other words, anything that an ecosystem provides that we can benefit from directly, indirectly, or aesthetically (aka the way that ecosystems bring aesthetic value, such as the support of mental health that nature provides). At Monteverde Natural Cosmetics, we got to experience the entire process of making soaps from natural, raw ingredients such as oils, beeswax, and extracts, among others. The family that owns the business are such amazing people who care about the sustainability of the everyday products we use, and they are extremely intelligent!

On Tuesday, our class activity forced us to get our feet wet as we got hard at work in a stream nearby our CIEE campus. The objective of this activity was to test the water quality of a stream in Monteverde while learning about macroinvertebrates! We got into smaller groups, and each group went into the stream together to try and collect any macroinvertebrates that there were. We were careful not to collect more than one of each species so that we could lower the impact of our intervention in their habitat. While we were out of the classroom, we also tested the river with a tool called a multiparameter meter and found measurements for conductivity, salinity, pH, dissolved solids, and water temperature. Then, we returned to campus with the macroinvertebrates and classified each one using guides and microscopes in the laboratory. 

Each classification included a number which indicated a range of where the macroinvertebrate lies on a scale of being good, regular, or bad for the quality of the water. The sum of all the numbers for each species found in the stream gave us a bigger number, and wherever that number fell on a different scale gave us an idea of what the water quality was like for this particular water source. On that day, the stream we tested had a lot of biodiversity, and the water quality overall was regular to good! I thought that this activity was super interesting! It was such a fun experience getting to conduct this sort of research together!  

On Wednesday we took a 40ish minute drive to Lluvias de Gloria Coffee Farm, owned by a female entrepreneur! Gloria is part of a large family and she received land from her father. The land was originally just pasture for cows lacking in plant life, however, this inspired Gloria to do something truly magical with it. Gloria began planting so many diverse plants, everywhere, including an abundance of coffee trees! Now, the land that was once almond nothing looks to me like a giant magical fairy garden! When I heard that we were going to a farm, I honestly did not expect it to be anything like it was, and it completely blew me away. Gloria knows everything about anything at all that she planted on her land. She can locate any of the (what seems like) millions of plant species she grows and tell you all about it. She knows the details of what each plant is good for. Gloria is a mastermind, and I am SO impressed and inspired by her passion for what she does.  

She and her family produce and sell amazingly good coffee (we were able to taste test it!), and they uphold the potential that the land around them has to flourish and benefit the ecosystems and people that surround it. 

The people, food, learning, and adventure that I’ve been able to take part in fuels me with excitement! I could honestly go on for a long time about all of the amazing things that I have learned and have been able to do here in Costa Rica, but I’ve obviously written what is probably a bit too much, so I will have to call it here. I am so very excited to embark on the rest of my program with my sister and my new friends! Studying abroad is magnificently worth it!