By Molly Franson
Pura Vida from our
last couple of hours in beautiful Costa Rica. It is safe to say that this has
been the trip of a lifetime. We are beyond blessed to have had the opportunity
to spend this week together playing basketball, exploring, and growing closer
together. We will never forget the memories from this trip.
When I first flew
over Costa Rica we all looked out the window at the green mountainous land
below. It was amazing from the airplane so I knew it would be even better once
we were on the ground. Going through customs was pretty easy but getting my
luggage was a little more difficult. While we stood and waited the power went
out, but it was fine it came back on pretty quickly. The belt started moving
again and I grabbed my luggage. Before we boarded and checked our bags, my
handle on my bag wouldn’t go down and it got ripped off on the flight but it
really was no big deal.
After we arrived
to our beautiful resort, we experienced our first language barrier at the mall
when we tried to order food. I was super excited to use my Spanish here, but I
froze up when I heard how fast they spoke. It’s funny thinking back on that now
because I think all of us settled in and learned a thing or two on how to
communicate (we also learned that it’s totally acceptable to just answer with
Pura Vida and it would suffice). A lot of the natives spoke enough English and
when we got stuck our guide Silvia helped us through. At the Colegio Seminario,
where we played our second game, I met two of the high school girls and tried
to use my Spanish…I ended up telling them I was 900 years old and they were so
confused, but died laughing at me. Needless to say, my Spanish improved a lot
since the beginning of the trip.
Driving
from adventure to adventure experiencing Costa Rica was really incredible, and
completely frustrating. One day, we were driving through San Jose during rush
hour and moved three blocks in 45 minutes. But we took advantage of the
downtime and ended up playing games and singing as loud and obnoxiously as we
could.
The houses in Costa Rica are so colorful. Some of them are built from
scraps, others are nicer, but they all have barbed wired and fences. There is
graffiti everywhere and some of it is really beautiful, others looked very
destructive. The gyms we played in are no BB&T Arenas (which we are so
lucky to have). They have concrete floors and crooked rims, but the athletes love
their gyms and it’s so obvious. The people here have such a love for life. The
hospitality was incredible. They welcomed us and they treated us so well. They
have such a sense of community here. When we drove to an excursion we passed a
park filled with people. In America it feels like our parks are always empty.
The
food here was delicious. Every restaurant we went to people always took
pictures of their food. After we would work a clinic, the people in Costa Rica
would make our lunches for us. They usually consisted of a sandwich, apple and
banana. It was the sweetest thing when we walked back and saw our homemade
lunches. It was even sweeter when we realized they cut the crust off of all our
bread!
When
we took a day to hangout at the beach, we realized that the ocean is SO much
fun, but also actually ruthless and doesn’t care about anything. For starters,
we weren’t used to the salt water so all of our throats and eyes burned. Then
we experienced our first double wave and got up after the first one talking
about how cool it was only to get thrown around by the second one. I think our
teamwork during our swim improved a ton. We came up with a system where we
would call out the number of waves and whether we were going to dive under them
or ride them out. Then we all kept checking on each other to make sure everyone
was all right. Our communication was impeccable and we all made it home safely
so that was definitely an added bonus.
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