Author: Zoe Henkes

Location: San Jose, Costa Rica

Costa Rica is most known for its breathtaking environment and biodiversity, so sometimes it is easy to overlook its rich culture and history.  Although I have always been intrigued by Latin American culture, after being here for a month, I realize how surface-level my understanding really was.  In order to fully understand and appreciate Costa Rican culture today, I think it is imperative to first gain an understanding of the nation’s past.

In the ethnology class that we all are required to take here, we learn about the history of Costa Rica, as well as Central America, as a whole.  We are then able to use this knowledge to make connections to the phenomena that we see in daily life, and deepen our understanding of it.  For example, in front of the Central Bank in San José, you will find a group of statues depicting poor farmers and peasants directly outside of the main entrance to the bank.  After learning about Central America’s history of huge inequality, it is apparent that these statues were put in place to remind the wealthy bankers that the bank was established for the common people.  This image is a very stark contrast to image of Wall Street and affluent business tycoons of the United States.  Another thing that makes Costa Rica different than the United States is that it doesn’t have an active military.  Since the abolition of the military in 1948, the Costa Rican government has been able to take the money that would have been used for the upkeep of armed forces, and apply it to other endeavors such as education or the universal healthcare system.

Furthermore, I was lucky enough to be here to celebrate Costa Rica’s Independence Day.  On Thursday, September 14^th, we went to my host brother’s school, where the young children sang and danced, then closed the night with a parade of lanterns.  On Friday September 15^th, I went to a parade in Santo Domingo with my host family.  It was very similar to what I have observed in the United States for the 4^th of July—there were marching bands, flags, dancers, and more.  While it sometimes it is easy to assume that the United States is bigger, better, or more patriotic, it was apparent that Costa Ricans have just as much, if not more, pride for their nation and history.

Overall, while there is still much more to learn, I have already gained a deeper level of understanding of Costa Rican and Central American culture.  Of course, the vast biodiversity and beautiful beaches are important parts of Costa Rica, but even more so is the nation’s rich history.  I think that in general, for anyone looking to truly appreciate a nation’s present-day culture, he or she must first understand the nation’s past.

Author: Zoe Henkes

Location: San Jose, Costa Rica

Have you ever taken a day or more to fully unplug from technology and the stresses of daily life?  While it might seem crazy or even impossible, it was just what I needed.  Recently,  the other students and I took a weekend trip to Savegre, a private biological reserve located in the Talamanca Mountain Range of Costa Rica.  While we had electricity and hot water, we did not have any access to internet—the point of the trip was  to relax, enjoy nature, and reflect on our time in Costa Rica thus far.

Although Heidi, the director of the Costa Rica study abroad program, warned us that it would be cold in the mountains, I was definitely not prepared.  We arrived in Savegre late Friday night.  It was raining, and the cabin that we were staying in had no heat, so we piled on the blankets in order to keep warm.

The next morning, we had a host of different activities to partake in, the first being birdwatching at 6 AM.  While I would never ordinarily wake up practically before the sun itself, as a nature enthusiast, I couldn’t pass up this amazing opportunity.  Many birdwatchers come to see the quetzal bird, which is famous to Costa Rica.   While some people come in search of the bird and don’t see one the entire time they are there, we got lucky and spotted one right away.  Our guide had a special telescope for birdwatching so that we could see the birds from far away.  It was a beautiful creature with bright green feathers on the back and red feathers on the breast.  I watched in awe as it sat perched on a tree branch so peacefully.  It was a truly amazing experience—I stood there and just listened to the sounds of the forest.  I can’t remember the last time I felt such a strong connection to nature.

Next, we had the opportunity to go horseback riding through the mountains.  It had been several years since I had ridden a horse, so I was a little nervous.  I was expecting the path to be fairly level and smooth, but that was far from the truth.  While we started out on the road, we soon branched off into the forest.  As we waded through rivers and climbed high up into the trees—it was so amazing to see how powerfully, yet gracefully these horses navigated the difficult terrain.  We eventually found ourselves at a waterfall, neatly hidden within the thick forest.  The water was so cold and refreshing.  I had been feeling silly about wearing my bright blue rain boots on the excursion, but then I was thankful for them.  As we turned back and headed back down the mountain, I could see all the valley and forest beneath us—wow.

Overall, among other things, these were the highlights of my trip to Savegre.  While we were only there for a short time, arriving late Friday night and leaving early Sunday morning, I had an amazing time.  It was so liberating to take a break from my phone and social media and just enjoy my surroundings.  I will never forget feeling so close to nature.  I felt at peace.  I felt at home.

Author: Zoe Henkes

Location: Costa Rica

Warm greetings from Costa Rica!  I have been here for a few days now, but I have already learned so much!  Among already improving my Spanish and learning about Costa Rican culture, I learned a very important lesson (technically) before my trip even started.  My flight was scheduled to leave on Saturday, August 26^th, out of Chicago, with a short layover in Houston.  Earlier that week, however, I had learned about Hurricane Harvey and the growing concern about the potential destruction that the storm could produce.  I was a bag of emotions—excited, nervous, energetic, anxious.

As of that Friday, flights through Houston were being cancelled left and right, but somehow, my flight was untouched and was scheduled to depart as planned.  After making several phone calls to the airline, it seemed as though I was clear to fly.  The drive to the airport from home was about 2.5 hours, so my family and I left pretty early Saturday morning.  On the way, however, I found out that my flight had been delayed, and then delayed again.  At this point, the plane into Houston would have arrived too late to make the connecting flight.

I was supposed to be taking the same flight as three of my peers on the trip, so sure enough, messages from our group chat started to blow up my phone.  I was the first of my travel group to arrive at the airport, so it was up to me to get the facts and relay the information back to the group.  A very nice travel agent from the airline listened to our situation and calmly gave me all of the information that she had been given, even talking to her supervisor and checking out other options for our group.  We were reassured by several other travel agents as well that there was no possible way the flight would be moved up to an earlier time. Thus, it was impossible for us to make the connecting flight as it was too dangerous for us to go to Houston.  With that information, we collectively decided to switch the flight to Sunday, the next day.

Prepared to get up even earlier and make the drive again to the airport, I set my alarm for the ungodly hour of 5:50AM.  Finally relaxed and feeling okay about the situation, I fell asleep early, ready to travel the next day.  Sure enough, however, I woke up to notifications on my phone that the flights that day had been canceled.  Canceled!?  I rubbed my eyes again, blinked a few times, and read it again—canceled.  In fact, the whole airport in Texas had shut down for the next two days due to extreme flooding.  After much more deliberation among the group, we decided to reschedule for a flight on the same airline for Tuesday.  Ironically, all possible flights to Costa Rica offered by this airline were scheduled to stop in Houston—we were kind of in a sticky situation.  Even after changing the flight to Tuesday, we were still very unsure if it was going to be canceled again or not.  Then, after even more deliberation, tears (almost), and searching for new (yet affordable) flights, we decided to switch airlines to avoid traveling through Houston.  While this was not the best option, considering all that had already happened, we were definitely anxious to get this resolved.

Now, it’s been nearly a week since I arrived.  I’ve been able to settle into life with my host family, visited several beautiful sites around San José, and eaten a ton of rice and beans.  I have also had some time to reflect on this adventure already.  Situations such as these really put things into perspective.  While dealing with flight cancellations is extremely stressful, I can’t imagine what it would be like to be living in the Houston area at a time like this—my thoughts and prayers sincerely go out to anyone who has been affected in any way.  Furthermore, on my end, this small bump in the road was miniscule in the grand scheme of things.  Overall, everything worked out in the end, and the view was actually pretty spectacular.

Pura vida.

Blogger: Zoe Henkes

Location: San José, Costa Rica

Major: Biochemistry and a Spanish minor

Studying abroad in college is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I am eager to be immersed in the Costa Rican culture, improve on my Spanish-speaking skills, and take part in an amazing journey of learning and personal growth. I am most excited about meeting my host family. It is so cool to have a “second family” to get to know and love!

Author: Kortney Cena

Location: San Jose, Costa Rica

Once we made it aboard the plane, Granny took a picture of me, saying she wanted to send “a picture of the girl who took me under her wing” to her daughter. As I took the window seat and Granny sat near the aisle, she gestured towards the empty center seat saying, “Do you think we’ll get away with this?”

“What, having an empty seat here?” I asked.

She nodded and I said “Probably not, they said this would be an almost full flight.”

She sat for a second, then turned to me and said “I could lay in both seats and act like I’m ill.”

We laughed, but in the end, another nice old lady ended up sitting between us. As people passed by and put their luggage in the overhead bins, she tapped me on the arm and said, “They can’t put their luggage like that! It won’t fit. It says so in this manual” as she pulled the plane manual out from the backseat pocket. “The proper procedure is in here,” she said. She added, almost as an afterthought, “I should be a flight attendant.”

I laughed and told her she’d probably be great at that. And she said “Yeah, I would tell people: ‘I don’t know what you are saying, I have hearing aids, just do what I tell you to’.”

There were some serious culture shock moments on the way back to Colorado. The biggest shock I faced that day was to see such a confrontational attitude after so many months with polite and calm Ticos. But before I could associate the loud and complaining and crazy with “the United States culture,” this Granny came up and showed a completely different attitude. This Granny knew Pura Vida. Though I have been hearing the phrase for months, it was her who taught me how to really live a pure life. When trouble comes, don’t stress out and run around like everyone else. Take it peacefully. Even when Granny heard we might have to stay the night, she didn’t panic but treated everyone with respect and was cracking jokes. She was never afraid to ask for help, and actually, it was by asking that she made some friends, including me. She taught me to, in the worst of times, be relatable with people and be nice. If this is not the message of Pura Vida that the Ticos have been trying to drill into me, then I don’t know what is. Patience. We are all people and it will all work out in the end. It is not the United States culture that was repulsing me, but rude people. Just like there are nice and rude people in Costa Rica, the same is true here, and anywhere else. And I began to think, maybe home won’t be quite so different after all.

Once I made it off the last plane and helped the guy in orange find the baggage claim in DIA (all in Spanish of course!), my family finally got to me. I realized that all those fears I had in the beginning were silly. After only a couple minutes with them, I realized that no matter how much I have changed or no matter the amount of stories I had to tell, they wanted to love me, and they wanted to listen.

Now, I am still adjusting here. The other day I went to the grocery store by myself and accidentally reverted to Spanish when I had to interact with some strangers. In some ways, the hardest part of being home is the normality of it all. It feels like I have reverted back to life before Costa Rica. But inside, I know that I really am not the same. Though it may not yet be obvious how these changes are going to manifest themselves into my life, I do know that I will never forget the people I met and the experiences I had. I know that these things have changed where I am going in the future because I have a wider view about who “people” are—not just United States people, but all people of the world.

Author: Kortney Cena

Location: San Jose, Costa Rica

I was still thinking about the beautiful mother/daughter moment and looking at the pictures I had captured of the precious moment when I heard over the speakers, “Kortney R Cena. Last call for gate 47.” I had forgotten about the time change, and my gate had switched. A couple panicky moments later, I made it onto the second plane of the day, sitting in middle seat of the very last row – probably the least coveted seat of the airplane. But I had no problem with it as it allowed me to get to know this nice kid from Kansas City who wants to be a dental hygienist. A couple hours later, we landed in Kansas City, and everyone who was staying on the plane for its next stop in Denver moved up to get better seats. I didn’t know it at the time, but these people would be the starring characters in my next adventure.

The pilots found a maintenance problem with the plane, so we were asked to get off while they procured another plane for us. Once off and in the gate, we were told over the intercom to sit tight and wait for information. Some people, who were too impatient to do that, asked for information and were turned to the customer service desk. As I sat, waited, and listened to angry voices all around me as they complained about the situation, my ear picked out some soft and less angry Spanish being spoken by 2 of the other passengers – a guy in bright orange and his companion in white. I immediately felt a gush of relief– either because their voices were calm or because Spanish feels like home to me now after 4 months of immersion. And this is when I met Granny. She is a delightful elderly woman, perhaps in her 80’s, but still with plenty of spirit. She wears a flowery dress and a light pink cardigan and is the picture of a cute old woman. Because she has hearing aids, she could not understand the intercom voices and was very confused about the whole situation. She asked me if I was going to Denver, and when I replied yes, she said “Then I am sticking with you!”.

Nearby there was a security officer who was telling people that if our flight had been canceled, we would have to be fit onto other flights to Colorado for that day, and if there were none, we could have to wait until tomorrow for a flight. One lady, wearing all dark black clothes and a darker attitude, hurried off to where the security officer suggested– which was out to the main check-in booth of southwest, outside of security. As Granny stepped up to the officer and started to ask questions of her own, I heard over the speakers someone saying “Denver, line up at gate 39,”so I began to lead Granny in that direction. Eventually we made it to the front where all other passengers who had no boarding passes (because we were already on the plane) were congregating. Southwest had got us a new plane, and we were all ready to get on– except for the lady in black who ran off. As we waited for the new plane to be prepared, I talked to the guy in orange. Turns out he is from El Salvador, a land plagued with gang wars and violence, but he personally was a successful businessman in Houston and was going to Denver to visit family. He was interested to hear that I was traveling from Costa Rica “a land of peace, thanks to God.” Then Granny showed me a picture of her great-grandson. A stressed-out mother tried to placate her fussy two-year-old and complained about her traveling woes, insisting “They had better let us on first. We were supposed to be on the plane first.”

As the plane finally began to load, we were not let on first, but were instead to go after the pre-boarders. Stressed-out mom was furious, and questioned the attendant. Despite her frustration, the attendant still decided to let the wheelchaired and disabled on the plane first. As one pre-boarder, an older man, went through to the plane, Granny turned to me and said, “I should say I’m with him!” Then with a smile, she mock cried out “Oh honey, wait for me!”

In response I answered, “Oh yeah, grandpa, wait for us!”

As we were snickering to ourselves, the other ‘through-travelers’ formed a line and began to get on the plane. Luckily, Granny was an old lady who knew how to use her old-lady-status to her advantage. She got herself in the front of the line and then asked if I, her daughter, could come with her. And that’s how I boarded the flight as the 3rd person and got a second-row window seat.

But just before we could get on, the lady in black appeared. She had a ticket for the flight in her hand. I gathered that she had traipsed around the entire airport, gone through security again, and probably met a lot of resistance to show up at the correct gate (which was in reality only 10 meters from the gate she left earlier) with this ticket. She was frustrated and at her wits end, so she cut to the front of the line, gave the attendant her ticket and asked to board. The attendant, who didn’t know her story, looked and saw in her ticket a boarding number A27, assumed she was just an impatient guest, and he told her to go wait in line. Furious, the lady in black said, “No! No, no, look again, it’s highlighted just for you.”

He let her pass with a begrudging nod, but she turned back, stopped the flow of traffic, and made a scene asking, “What’s your name? Write down your name here.” I assume she wanted to go online and complain about this particular attendant’s service. The other passengers behind me were upset she was making a racket and causing the obstruction in traffic. The Salvadoran in orange shook his head, ashamed for her. He said, “Earlier, she said she was just going home,” implying that there really was no good reason for her to be so worked up about the delay. Though I know she has a backstory that can probably explain all of her feelings and behaviors, I responded, “The people of Costa Rica are so tranquilo, so chill, and I miss that already.”

“Yes”, he responded. Paciencia.

Author: Kortney Cena

Location: San Jose, Costa Rica

Before we left Santa Rosa, Costa Rica, our program director Heidi Michelson put us through a re-entry workshop. We talked about the things we would miss, what we have learned, and about some serious fears and doubts we had about returning home. Fears that our friends and family will not understand us and how we have changed, that people will not listen to our stories, or, worst of all, that we will forget it all and revert back to the people we were 5 months ago. But, whether we were mentally prepared for it or not, May 10th came, and we had to say heartbreaking goodbyes to our host families and to the country we have grown to love.

As I took-off in the first flight of a line of planes that lead from Costa Rica to Denver, CO – home— I was a little overwhelmed by all of the emotional and exciting things that had happened already that day. Saying goodbye to my host family was harder than I had even imagined and saying goodbye to Costa Rica itself, the beautiful country full of mountains and trees, through the small and just-slightly-lower-than-is-comfortable plane window was unexpectedly difficult. And the forecast was for more emotional turmoil in the coming hours, as I knew that I would see my real family for the first time in months. Little was I to know that this was only the beginning of my travels that day—and travel is never adventure-less.  Recorded here, in a 3 part series, is the epic tale of my journey home, physically and mentally, and the record of a re-entering experience with plenty of lessons to be learned. In the end, you will find that in all my experiences in Costa Rica, of all the time spent with “ticos”, no one has truly driven home the heart of Pura Vida like an old Granny I met from Houston, and she was able to drive away the fears I had of home.  

Part 1: The Basic Blunders

Erin, another student in the Valpo Costa Rica Study Abroad program, had the same flight as me to Houston. While her connecting flight heads off to Chicago and mine goes to Denver, we got to spend the last few hours in Costa Rica together. As we flew out of Costa Rica and passed over Nicaragua, I happened to look out the window and notice a mountain with clouds around it. But that was no mountain, and those were not clouds either. On second look, I saw that it was an erupting volcano. I elbowed Erin, and we marveled at Central America giving us a last glimpse of its natural beauty. We visited Nicaragua a couple weeks before, we hiked one of its many volcanos, but the view of an erupting volcano, from a safe distance away, was another level of cool. Around the cone, you could see bright red lava, and down the sides, you could see trails of black where the magma had cooled. The steam coming out the top spiraled into the sky. Before you get worried, the volcano didn’t hurt anyone, it was in a rural area and even so, the lava didn’t travel much past it’s base.

As the attendant came around with drinks, both Erin and I responded in Spanish, which I’m sure he found confusing. As we arrived, I creaked my neck to look at Houston through the plane window. Everything was…perfect. Big. Placed with perfect spacing between buildings. The roofs were white—there were none of the cheap and typical tin roof rusty-orange color roofs or green roofs that mark the houses in Costa Rica. Neighborhood blocks were perfect squares and each high school had its own meticulously kept sports fields. To look at all of the wealth, in every direction, it’s easy to forget that most people in the world don’t live this way. Most people couldn’t afford to keep their lawn perfectly trimmed with manicured flowers and bushes rimming it. In fact, my host family couldn’t even afford a lawn. What are lawns for anyways? Do they have a purpose other than to impress neighbors? As all these thoughts ran through my head and we landed in Texas, I had to admit that everyone was right when they said that culture shock is always harder on the way back. As we went to the bathroom for the first time in the US for months, both Erin and I made the mistake of throwing the toilet paper in the trash can and laughed at ourselves for it afterwards.

Immigration in Houston went without a hitch. Well, except for the one moment that Erin tripped on her shoelaces and wiped out as we walked toward the security checkpoint. But we made it through the whole first step of returning to the US with only a few minor scrapes and bruises. We decided to head towards Erin’s gate together, since my flight was leaving an hour later– and unbeknownst to her, her real mother and I had planned a surprise for her! Conveniently, Erin’s mom also needed to take a flight from Houston to Chicago, and had set it up so that she and Erin could take the flight together, but she wanted this to be a surprise for Erin. I knew that this plan was going to result in tears– Erin had barely slept the night before, trying to make the most of her time in Costa Rica and putting off packing until midnight, and she had also already cried a couple times today when saying goodbye to her host family and to Costa Rica. As soon as Erin saw her mom, she erupted in tears, and the two enveloped each other in a great big hug. After a couple moments of happy sobbing, and some cute pictures, the two of them had to get in line to board. And after all we had been through together, Erin and I had to say goodbye (for now).