El Toro Student Recounts Costa Rica Adventure

By Jessica Carrier

El Toro High School student, Amberly Bark, was one of 26 girl scouts to recently return from the opportunity of a lifetime.  

In partnership with Outward Bound Costa Rica, 26 girl scouts got to travel to Costa Rica for a 14 day adventure in which they helped to preserve a sea turtle hatchery, restore an abandoned health clinic, paint a scenic mural on a library, and  interact with local children.

Amberly, who has been a member of the girl scouts since preschool, first heard about the event through her mother.  “I just kind of looked at it and sounded interesting,” said Amberly. “I really wanted to travel, definitely.  I wanted to get a chance to test out my spanish skills.  I’ve always wanted to go on a mission trip or something, but I don’t  belong to a church. This was sort of the same idea as a mission trip. We’re helping people.”  

She decided to submit an application which included a small essay. Organizers  of the opportunity told the applicants that they would know by a certain day if they had been accepted or not. Sure enough, that morning Amerbly got an email informing her she had been accepted.  

“I was really excited,” Amberly said.

In Amberly’s group, there were 12 girls.

“The girls were from all over the United States,” she said. “Everyone just got really close.  Everyone knew we were helping people, so I knew the other girls were good people. It was really nice. I feel like I’ve known them forever even though I was only with them for two weeks.”

When Amberly first got to Costa Rica, she was overwhelmed by the scenic landscapes.

“It rains everyday so everything was so green," she said. "It was so beautiful, I loved it."

The first place Amberly and her group visited was Amburi, a small indigenous village in the region of Talamanca.  

“We were there for about five days and we did three different projects,” Amberly said. “We restored this abandoned health clinic and fixed it up so they could get back to using it.

“And another thing we did was, there was this world map that was all faded, and the paint was chipping" Amberly said. "So, we got to repaint that. The last thing we did was paint the mural on the library. We painted the whole wall with three murals. It was so much fun.” 

When the girls got to the sea turtle conservation at the Playa Hermosa Wildlife Refuge, they were disappointed there were no turtles.  

“We actually didn’t get to see any sea turtles, so it was a huge bummer,” Amberly said. “And we couldn’t do any night patrols because [a conservationist] was recently killed in Costa Rica for doing night patrols by a sea turtle hunter. So they didn’t want us doing any of  that.”

Instead, the girls got to work clearing a landing for the sea turtles to hatch their eggs.

“[A landing] was recently destroyed,” Amberly said. “So [we started] moving  sticks, pulling weeds, and moving logs to make a new one.”

Amberly’s favorite part of the trip was playing with all of the kids in Talamanca.
“That was a really good experience because you realize kids are the same everywhere,” Amberly said. “I mean, just to see these kids from a different culture and see how happy they were.”

Going into her senior year at El Toro High School, Amberly plans to go to college and major in engineering.  She hopes to continue to travel as she gets older.

“I like to see different cultures,” Amberly said. “And I definitely want to study abroad somewhere.” 

Amberly’s trip to Costa Rica taught her many things, but one lesson has had a lasting effect on the way she approaches day to day life back in home in California.

“Something I learned there, was that life here gets so busy.  Sometimes you just have to remember to calm down,” Amberly said. “Remember it’s okay if you miss your appointment or something, it’s not that big of a deal. When we were there, they didn’t really like letting us use watches or anything, they just wanted us to live in the moment. So that’s just something that I took away from it.”