A very good learning and experience

Dear David, Damaris, Mitzi and my other friends at Academia de Español D'Amore - -

I promised David I would write all of you occasionally and I have done a terrible job. As 2009 comes to a close and a new year begins, I thought I would send a short message.

A lot has happened in the past seven months with my family and otherwise. After my trip to Costa Rica, my family hosted an Italian exchange student for two weeks and then I traveled to Italy to live with her family for two weeks. The town I lived in was on the beach and the food was incredible. I had a nice experience but I still enjoyed my trips to Costa Rica and the southeast United States (Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee) much more than any time I have spent in Europe. As for school and activities, I am a senior in high school this year and am president of my 4-H club, a Chamber of Commerce Jr. Director, playing tennis and running and active in my youth group at church. I have been accepted to Texas A&M based on my SAT and PSAT scores- my dream school :D - and will be starting classes there this summer. Right now, immigration or family law is my interest and I will be majoring in business, minoring in Spanish at A&M and hopefully, going to law school afterwards.

I think about Costa Rica often and wish I could go back. Spanish is still a priority although family issues have complicated how much time I have been able to commit to it and many other things. Hopefully, I can spend more time on it this semester in preparation for harder Spanish classes at college. Two of my best friends and I are considering a trip to Central America this summer to do mission work and improve our Spanish. If that does not work out, we have tentative plans to work with a mission group and Spanish speaking people in Texas. My oldest sister, a financial strategist, constantly reminds me how important it is to learn another language for both my work and my personal life and I know she is right.

Attached is a recent picture and an essay I wrote about Costa Rica for my college application. I thought you might enjoy reading it. Unfortunately, there was a limit on the length so I was unable to include everything I wanted to say about my experience. I can honestly say that Costa Rica changed my life. It was undeniably a dream that came true and I have many of you to thank for that. Thank you.

I hope everything is well in Quepos/ Manuel Antnoio and with your families.

Paige Toppert

I should have known better than to ever get on that boat. I was seventeen and living in a small town in Costa Rica and attending language immersion school. Two weeks into the program, the school organized a sunset snorkeling tour to a beautiful national park. I was excited but somewhat apprehensive. Although I had seen some of the most beautiful coasts in the world, my life-long fear of the ocean had kept me safely on the beach. I had overcome my fear enough to learn to surf on this trip, but the tour would be my first time on open water.

When we arrived at the dock that day, the first alarm that should have gone off in my head was meeting our captain, Ben, a middle age man from Florida. He looked disturbingly like Tom Hanks in the movie Cast Away - after he had been marooned for several years. As we walked down the dock, we saw our boat. Its faded blue paint job betrayed that it was undoubtedly the oldest and smallest boat in the harbor. Speaking through his bushy beard, Ben enthusiastically welcomed us onto his craft, “La Abuela Fiestando” – “The Partying Grandmother”. My teachers, friends from school, and I exchanged skeptical looks but climbed on board. Maybe it was the fact that I had grown up in a dusty town in the middle of Texas or everyone else’s giddy excitement that made me overlook the storm brewing on the horizon and our captain’s disorganized manner.

As we moved toward the national park, the sun reflected on the water and hundreds of fish jumped out ahead of the boat. I put my head back, inhaled deeply, and tried to relax. Just then, the dilapidated boat coughed to a stop. The captain looked at the motor and then at the gas tank. After a few minutes, he reluctantly told us that he had forgotten to get gas. Everyone grew quiet as Ben, our captain, unsuccessfully tried to use his cell phone to call one of his friends for help. Time passed slower. Thirty minutes and then an hour and still no sign of a rescue party.

We continued to drift farther and farther out to sea. The clouds rolled overhead and the storm finally unleashed its fury. Everyone crowded together in the bottom of the boat. My classmates were sea sick and all of us were soaked. The longer we drifted, the more I thought about the obstacles that had made just getting to Costa Rica difficult and how I knew that because I had overcome those challenges that I could face this as well.

Exactly how I wound up on an old boat in a tropical rainstorm is a surprising story. Until that point, my life had been spent in a small town buried in the hill country of Texas. After taking Latin for two years, I was thrilled to be starting Spanish. In no time at all, I had fallen in love with both the Spanish language and culture. When my oldest sister came home for Thanksgiving, she casually mentioned that one of her colleagues had attended a language immersion school for several months. That night after everyone went to sleep; I entered “language immersion schools” into a search engine, unsure of exactly what I was looking for. As I browsed through the results, I became more and more interested. Page after page showed pictures of beautiful beaches and smiling students with their native host families. I immediately knew that this was something I wanted to experience but also knew there were some significant obstacles in my way.

At first my biggest challenge was not knowing where to began. My older sisters, always my two biggest supporters, reminded me to just start somewhere. Encouraged by their words, I decided the first thing I should do was pick a school. Since I would be going alone, it was obvious that Costa Rica, the safest country in Central America, would be my destination. Finding a reasonably priced, well-balanced, and reputable school was much more difficult than I had imagined. Many high school programs seemed like expensive summer camps, focusing mostly on activities instead of Spanish. On the other hand, adult programs were either too intensive or too advanced. Finally, I found a school in a small town along the Pacific coast that looked perfect.

While selecting a school had seemed arduous, the next challenge I faced was much more difficult. Month-long immersion programs, airline tickets, and lodging would be expensive, and I would have to pay for all of it. For the past three years, I had balanced school and a part-time job at a local general store. I wasn’t making enough to save for college – my first priority – and save for language immersion school, so I realized I knew I would have to take on another job to make my trip possible. I began working part time at an optometry clinic, babysitting once a week, and dramatically cutting back my spending. It seemed like I was constantly working my junior year. Between all of my jobs, school, and extracurricular activities such as mock trial, 4-H, and tennis, I had little time to be with my friends or just relax. As the fall ended and spring began, I wondered a hundred times daily whether or not I could actually earn the money I needed or even if I should spend it on a language immersion program. It was mid-April before I felt that I was financially ready.

There was still one very important thing that I had to do before I could go: get my parents’ permission. While we had discussed it a couple times throughout the year, nothing had been firmly decided. Finally, I told them about Academia de Espanol D’Amore, the school I had picked, and how I had earned all the money I needed. I gave them several referrals I had gotten from parents who had sent their high school students to Quepos. Both of my parents expressed their pride but also their valid concerns about safety and asked for time to think about it.

After months of researching, working, saving, and hoping, I spent the next few days doing something much harder – waiting. My parents were dramatically silent about their feelings and I hesitated to ask. I was shocked when my mom finally told me that I could go. In the short weeks that followed, friends, neighbors and even strangers chastised both me and my parents. We were frequently told that a trip to Costa Rica was “unsafe and foolish”. Although they were apprehensive themselves, my mom and dad ignored the criticism, remained firmly supportive, and helped me with the final preparations. The reality of what I was doing set in the day my oldest sister, Rachel, took me to the airport, walked with me to the security checkpoint, and then suddenly, I was alone. I walked to the gate and boarded the plane in a daze. When I overheard a mother behind me telling her young daughter that “she had no idea what she was doing”, I was sure she was talking to me. Three flights and two buses later, I finally arrived in Quepos, Costa Rica.

From the day my sister suggested I look at language schools, I was afraid: afraid that I would pick the wrong school; afraid I couldn’t earn the money I needed in time; afraid that my parents would not let me go; but most of all, afraid that I would dream too big and fail. If I had not moved forward in spite of my fears, I would have missed out on what was undoubtedly the best experience of my life. Once I got to Costa Rica, I faced many more unforeseen challenges and complications. From navigating the unfamiliar streets of Quepos to conquering my fear of the ocean, I was constantly being stretched and challenged. My summer can most accurately be summarized by a quote by Ralph Waldo Emersion. “It was high counsel that I once heard given to a young person: Always do what you are afraid to do.

All of these seemingly small and somewhat stressful events came together that moment on the boat when I realized that I could handle my current situation because of everything else I had been through. After hours at sea, my teachers’, classmates and I, were finally rescued. Sadly, none of us got to snorkel or enjoy the national park that day, but what I learned on that seemingly disastrous “three-hour tour” was much more valuable. The difficult, the unfamiliar, the frightening are essential for growth. More importantly such experiences give us strength and confidence to draw on as we move forward through life. And for me, the journey is just beginning.