Venturing abroad to Costa Rica
Hello out there! I’m back from another quest and this time I had to travel a little further than 4th and Armory. Quick disclaimer: This quest was planned a little ahead of time. The next item checked off of my bucket list is #23: Go on a service trip. This past spring break in March I traveled to Santa Ana, Costa Rica, where I volunteered in a medical clinic for the week.
I went on this trip through an RSO (registered student organization) on campus named Foundation for International Medical Relief of Children (FIMRC). FIMRC is a national organization and there is a chapter here on campus. The national organization specializes in pediatric and maternal health and has built clinics in nine countries. I traveled to Costa Rica with 11 other students from the University of Illinois and there were 12 other students from Bradley, Rutgers, Cornell, and Georgia Tech. We were all split up among eight host families that we stayed with for the week. The homestay experience was really amazing! It was a firsthand look at the day-to-day lives of a Costa Rican family. We had breakfast and dinner with our host families and it was just like sitting at my dinner table at home; I felt like I was a part of their family.
Every day we woke up and headed to the clinic from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. During the day we would rotate between four tasks: shadowing the doctor, preparing prescriptions, inventory, and playing with kids. Each task was different and unique and I honestly didn’t have a favorite. Shadowing the doctor was very interesting because I got to see just how different the health-care system in the U.S. and other parts of the world are. A lot of patients would come in the clinic with parasites, or other serious infections and would be really thankful if they could just have ibuprofen to ease the pain. Preparing prescriptions was fun because I am looking to become a pharmacist so it was a nice taste of something I would be doing as a profession. Writing the directions in Spanish was a little tricky but it was also a fun way to practice Spanish. Inventory was also another task that put things in perspective because you saw just how limited the resources were. There were times when the volunteers in the pharmacy would come and ask for something and we had to say we didn’t have it. If you ask for a medication in the U.S. and it is not there, it gets ordered and shipped to you; not having it just isn’t an answer. Finally, playing with kids was extremely fun. A lot of them wanted to practice speaking English with us and teach us Spanish. We played tag, played with Legos, and played on the jungle gym. They were super sweet and so carefree it makes you wonder why as a child you always wanted to grow up so fast.
I thoroughly enjoyed my trip to Costa Rica and I was very sad to return home (especially when I was greeted by a blizzard the next day). I learned a lot about the health-care system in another part of the world and about the Costa Rican culture.