My name is Madchen Ewig, I am 15 years old and I’m a sophomore in high school. I’ve always known that there was a problem with pollution and that people were ruining the environment, but I didn’t understand what they truly meant until I had the opportunity to see for myself in Costa Rica.

There were many life lessons that I got to experience and learn in Costa Rica through the people I met on the trip and while working with the turtles.

To start with, we met Stuart who works with the turtles day and night. I’ve never seen anyone so passionate about what they do. I could tell that he was truly grateful to have us there. We weren’t just more tourists to him, we were his friends. He was grateful to see all of us ready to help the turtles and that really had an impact on my friends and I.

I was able to learn from Stuart that you have to find something that you are truly passionate about. He wasn’t just working with the turtles as a job, he truly cared about them. He showed me how to care about things in my life more passionately and to have a different outlook on things that don’t necessarily affect me in the States.

When we went to Costa Rica, I went through a service group from my school so I already knew everyone. I wasn’t that close with most of them since I was the youngest in the group but I knew it would be a good opportunity to meet and become friends with people I didn’t  talk to all the time.

We spent all of our time together in Costa Rica which gave me a good chance to grow those friendships. At the end of the week when we were on our final night, they brought us down into the lobby to do a “closing ceremony.”

We all had to go around and say something that we will take from this trip and then we went around again to say something that we learned and appreciated about the person on our left.

Our group was 17 girls and 1 boy, so to say there were a lot of tears is an understatement. We had all grown so close to each other in about 8 days. We came from different grades and friend groups but by the end of the trip you wouldn’t have known that. We experienced so much together that we all had a sort of special bond.

I still see these girls and talk to them at school after this trip and I’m so grateful that I had that opportunity to grow closer with them.

The last life lesson I learned was how I could help our environment and the turtles. Everyday we would walk on the beach and pick up garbage and I don’t know if I’ve ever been more disgusted to see what washes up on the beach.

You see shoes, bottles, clothes, bags, and more. But the real shocker to think about is the fact that the garbage that we picked up on the beach could have come from anywhere. It could have been my shoes that washed up on the beach or my wrapper that was thrown away. I was shocked and disgusted.

I wanted to make a change and they gave us plenty of ways to do that. One of our leaders took her wrappers and other items that don’t deteriorate fast and made what they call an “eco-brick.” I am now in the process of making my own eco-brick.

But besides the eco-brick, I always make sure that I am throwing my trash in the proper bin, donating my old clothes, and not using straws anymore.

There were so many things that I learned in Costa Rica but one of the most important things to always remember is Pura Vida. <3

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