Q: Where did you travel over the summer?

A: I went to Costa Rica for 28 days, almost the whole month of July.

Q: Who did you travel with?

A: I took a group of students because I was working for a student travel organization, West Coast Connections. They were not South students they were just high school students from all over the world who signed up to go on a trip and I met them in Costa Rica.

Q: How did you hear about the travel organization and what made you agree to go?

A: A friend of mine has worked for this company for the past few years and he’s always enjoyed his experience with them because you get to be adults who go on the trip and run it get all expenses paid. Also, you then get payment on top of that so I thought it would be a good way to like see a different part of the worlds make a little money over the summer.

Q: Why did the students you travel with come on the trip?

A: Lots of them came for different reasons. Some of them came just because their parents signed them up, while others did because they wanted community service hours for their college applications. The trip was half community service and half adventure activities.

Q: What was the main focus of the trip?

A: Well the main point of the trip was to engage in community service programs across the country, but it was split between that and exciting activities.

Q: What were some of the most exciting things you did on your trip?

A: We go to some really cool things: we had some private surf lessons, we went zip lining, we went whitewater rafting, we rappelled down waterfalls. We got to do a lot of cool things that if I had gone on my own I certainly would not have been able to do or just even thought of; like I would never have thought to sign up for surf lessons but I got to do it.

Q: What was your favorite activity?

A: My favorite was white water rafting because it was so exciting; however, I  also really enjoyed surfing because it was actually a lot easier than I thought. I was like ‘oh there’s no way I’m going to be able to get up like I’m just going to be paddling the entire time’ but actually I was able to in the end and it was really exhilarating.

Q: How did the community service aspect go?

A: We worked for a lot of various projects. We worked for the Costa Rican Humanitarian Foundation, doing various work for them like helping build things in a community. We also worked with that foundation at a kid’s camp and hung out with kids from the inner city who got bussed to this camp every day.

Q: What was the most interesting service project you participated in?

A: We worked on a coffee plantation that was basically a sustainable farm and we got to learn about their sustainability and how they grew coffee. We also got to taste the coffee and I brought some back for my family. It was really good.

Q: Which of the projects was the most rewarding?

A: We built part of a house as a partial project for Habitat for Humanity. We couldn’t do it just in the time that we were there but we piggybacked off of other trips and so all of the house was built entirely by kids who were on trips with this organization. We did tasks such as mixing cement to make a front porch and digging a trench for the septic system; it was really rewarding seeing how far we were able to bring the project by working together.

Q: How do you feel about the program now and would you recommend it to other teachers?

A: It’s definitely not easy to be gone for an entire month so I think you have to be in a position to be able to do it, but if you can I say, yeah, give it a shot. I really loved the trip, but it definitely made me more appreciative of the kids we have at South that I work with, because we have such a good group of respectful kids and I was very eager to get back to school and start working with them again.