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The work we did in Providencia, Dota of Costa Rica was truly eye opening and humbling. I was able to push my body physically and mentally to the limit in work that was very beneficial to the community of Providencia. I was very glad for that experience and I’m sure that all the delegates learned a few new skills that we never knew we had before arriving in Costa Rica. With this being said, on our final full day in Costa Rica, we spent the entire day exploring city streets in

Hello everyone, Lara here! Our day started bright and early at 4am, rushing to eat breakfast, and last minute hugs and goodbyes to the host families. My heart was heavy, Gianna and I both grew so fond of our host family, and they of us. We had a long heart to heart with them the night before which included a lot of sobbing. My heart also mourned leaving Providencia, a place I grew to feel at home in, with its wonderful community and people, and its tranquil scenery. I was thi

Hello friends, it’s ya girl Alyssa on this January 13th blog post. The sky this morning was decently overcast — perfect weather for our last work day at the biofábrica. Starting at 8:00 am in the morning, our team laid bricks at both the retaining wall site and dry toilet site, and together we made a final push toward completing the projects. Once we finished working for the day, we heard that Jorge and Adrián, who work at the biofábrica, are expecting to finish the dry toile

It’s been a week since our departure. I can’t put into words how grateful I am for this experience. How thankful I am for having an amazing host family, who genuinely cares about our wellbeing. While also having the opportunity to learn about construction.  Today started off like any normal day, wake up at 6:50, eat breakfast with our host father and mother; Micheal and Natalia; then proceed to walk to work at 7:50 AM. Justice and I, laughed it up about ridiculous stories and

Today’s our, ninth day over here. The people here are enjoyable and so is the food. The view is, incredible. However, and I know you’re tired of my self-deprecation, I think the problem is me. My awkwardness seems to personify into its own being and feed on nothing but spite for the rest of me.  What's the saying? “Wherever I go, there I am.” Well, I am here.  Although I’m finding it pretty hard to stay afloat, I’m still trying. My host family is great at approaching me with

Today the group hiked to the Quetzal National Forest in hopes to see the Quetzal bird, known for its vibrant red and green colors with two one-meter-long tail feathers, which are also known as streamers. The hike began in the early morning (since that is the best time to spot Quetzales) at a private trailhead directly off of the main road of the town. David and Jonathan shared much information about local flora and fauna while walking. Eventually, we reached a cow farm which

I am happy to announce that the retaining wall foot has been built and tomorrow we will start building it up with cinder blocks! Today we also started building up the walls on the inside part of the dry toilet where the compost process will take place. Due to the intense heat today, we had a half day of work then headed off with David to have a discussion about water scarcity. Making connections between the percentage of Earth's water (70%) and the amount of water in our bodi

I’m Joe Jimenez and I just have to say that today was truly amazing, I had so many new first time experiences. Like a well oiled machine we worked with the young dreamers to mix concrete cement to continue filling up the retaining wall. However, I have never mixed concrete cement with such a beautiful view like that of the Providencia mountains of Dota, Costa Rica. It was truly a sight to behold, however what made it even more incredible was that during one of our snack break

Hello everyone, my name is Sebastian Castro and it's my turn to write for the blog. Today was our 2nd day of work and things have started to ramp up. When we arrived to the Biofabrica, we immediately split up into two teams, where one team continued working on the dry toilet project while the other worked on both cutting and bending rebar for the retaining wall. The dry toilet is a lot like the kind in National Parks back in the states, but these turn into compost with time i

Hi Alejandro here, today Chris and I met the kindest granny in the airport, she was eager to learn about our trip and future ambitions. Furthermore, she shared excitement of her future endeavors in Costa Rica.  Turns out she was going to meet up with 15 random people in Costa Rica, and go zip lining among other activities. It was truly awe inspiring, and I can’t believe how ambitious she was at her age. I hope to be like that someday.  She shared stories of her studies, mainl

Today was our first day working on the projects. I worked on the retaining wall for the platform that will support their zero impact wet coffee processing mill. I was working with a combination of cabrillo students and young dreamers to dig a 40cm deep and 5 engineering student long trench (7m). It was hard work in the full sun, but it was very fulfilling to see the progress that we were able to make in just one day of working. Once we finished the trench we started to work o

Hi it's Lara, this morning we woke up early and had a delicious breakfast. It has been wonderful sharing meals together without our phones, enjoying each other's company and getting to know each other and the host families better. We had a blackberry juice with breakfast that came directly from the Biofabrica we are going to be working on. We then drove up to the Biofabrica in the back of a truck (with seats and a metal cage to hold on to), it made us feel like we were in Jur

Hey Blog, it’s ya girl Alyssa, here with the Cabrillo college engineering abroad program day #2 update! We touched down in San José, Costa Rica at 9:03 am on January 4th, some of us rested and some not so much. We went through customs, gathered our luggage, and met with our guide and mentor David.  After a delicious brunch at the Bread House restaurant, we all drove to the Tami Lodge, making a quick pit-stop at the MegaSuper for snacks and whatnot. We then set up our luggage