Final thoughts on Costa Rica

EDITOR'S NOTE: Throughout the summer, ASU students studying abroad will be writing back to the states about their overseas adventures. Fostering international student experiences is just one part of ASU's commitment to making a global impact.

Kinzi's blog:
Last day here in Costa Rica! As everyone is saying, and as most people do when a trip away from home comes to an end, it is bittersweet. It will be nice to have hot showers and to be back with my family, but I will miss constantly being around the friends I've made in my course and I will long for the greenness of Costa Rica. I think everyone is a little sad to go.

Our last task at hand is our final paper, where we will, according to the assignment guidelines, "Choose five or six salient experiences or readings that arise as you contemplate the figures and weave them together into a discussion of the people of Costa Rica within a theme that has some meaning for you." When the prompt mentions "figures," it's referencing three pictures that our professors took at the Museum of Costa Rica, a museum we visited on one of our class excursions. As a class we also visited Dota, a coffee manufacturer. We got to see the coffee beans fresh off the plant and we also watched as the workers roasted the beans. Coffee used to be the top industry of Costa Rica; it paid for the National Theater that we visited in San Jose. However, it is no longer at the top of Costa Rican industry because tourism and Dos Pinos, a dairy manufacturer, have taken that spot.

In class this past week we talked about the social aspect of Costa Rica's history and present. We read about how the public felt toward their government, looked at the changing role of women in society and, as always, compared what we have seen personally in Costa Rica with what we know from the States.

I think everyone in the group considered finding work in Costa Rica and staying, but alas, our families await us. Until we get to come back, we will miss the fruit, coffee, green landscape and friendly people.

Kinzi Hotchkiss, a global health major, will be a sophomore this fall. She is studying abroad in Costa Rica this summer.