Published: Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Edmonds students visit Costa Rica
All 15 Scriber Lake High School students earned the money to make the ecotourism adventure.
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Scriber Lake High School students prepare for a zip line ride near the Arenal volcano in Costa Rica.
EDMONDS -- Colin Evans flew through the Costa Rican jungle attached to a zip line. As he soared over a river into an open field, eight bright green parakeets surrounded him. Their wings kept pace with his speed. It seemed magical.
A 5-foot-long leatherback turtle laid 33 eggs just inches away from where Justine Davies watched in awe on a white sand beach. In the dark of night, the blue, dinosaurlike creature used her flippers to smooth the sand and camouflage her nest.
After an hour and a half, the turtle crawled back into the ocean, seemingly in a trance, oblivious that Justine and others had carried her eggs to a gated area farther down the beach to prevent poachers from stealing them.
Mila Hunter crossed several rivers to reach a Bri Bri village in the jungle. She visited homes with palm-leaf roofs and bamboo floors perched 6 feet off the ground. She ate rice and beans from a traditional banana leaf bowl and sipped a mashed cocoa bean beverage the Bri Bri call "the drink of the gods."
Evans, Davies and Hunter's trip to Costa Rica in late May with 12 other Scriber Lake High School students was the first international trip in the alternative school's more-than-40-year history.
Some administrators and school board members feared alternative school students couldn't handle a trip abroad, teacher Marjie Bowker said. However, she and fellow teacher Chris Brown eventually gained permission to lead the trip.
Each student had to pay $2,200 to EcoTeach travel company for the eight-day ecotourism excursion.
None of the Scriber Lake kids had a parent write a check to cover trip costs. All of the students fundraised or worked after school to earn money to pay for the adventure.
In the end, most everything came together and the Scriber Lake students enjoyed what they believe was a near-perfect trip.
For some, the trip to Costa Rica was their first vacation ever. For many, it was their first time in a plane. And for almost all the students, it was their first experience with international travel.
Sierra Perusse worked after school at Panera Bread Co. at the Alderwood mall to help pay for her trip. When she realized it wasn't going to be enough, she picked up a second job at a movie theater.
"Working to get the trip was killer," she said. "But once I actually got off the airplane and walked out and saw the outside of the airport and got outside the American scenery, it was definitely worth it. Feeling the warm rain was an incredible experience."
The trip inspired Perusse, a senior, to study to become a traveling nurse who helps people in needy countries.
The trip was exhausting for Brown and Bowker, but they said watching their students grow in Costa Rica made the work worth it. The trip was a breakthrough experience for many students that will change them forever, Brown said.
"It was a rite of passage," he said. "Just from the symbolic end of getting a passport and being there when their passports were stamped, there was a huge palpable, 'I'm an adult. I'm taking a big step in my life.' The making of memories that are attached to that stamp will be with them forever ... This will be with these kids the rest of their lives."
Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@heraldnet.com.
A 5-foot-long leatherback turtle laid 33 eggs just inches away from where Justine Davies watched in awe on a white sand beach. In the dark of night, the blue, dinosaurlike creature used her flippers to smooth the sand and camouflage her nest.
After an hour and a half, the turtle crawled back into the ocean, seemingly in a trance, oblivious that Justine and others had carried her eggs to a gated area farther down the beach to prevent poachers from stealing them.
Mila Hunter crossed several rivers to reach a Bri Bri village in the jungle. She visited homes with palm-leaf roofs and bamboo floors perched 6 feet off the ground. She ate rice and beans from a traditional banana leaf bowl and sipped a mashed cocoa bean beverage the Bri Bri call "the drink of the gods."
Evans, Davies and Hunter's trip to Costa Rica in late May with 12 other Scriber Lake High School students was the first international trip in the alternative school's more-than-40-year history.
Some administrators and school board members feared alternative school students couldn't handle a trip abroad, teacher Marjie Bowker said. However, she and fellow teacher Chris Brown eventually gained permission to lead the trip.
Each student had to pay $2,200 to EcoTeach travel company for the eight-day ecotourism excursion.
None of the Scriber Lake kids had a parent write a check to cover trip costs. All of the students fundraised or worked after school to earn money to pay for the adventure.
In the end, most everything came together and the Scriber Lake students enjoyed what they believe was a near-perfect trip.
For some, the trip to Costa Rica was their first vacation ever. For many, it was their first time in a plane. And for almost all the students, it was their first experience with international travel.
Sierra Perusse worked after school at Panera Bread Co. at the Alderwood mall to help pay for her trip. When she realized it wasn't going to be enough, she picked up a second job at a movie theater.
"Working to get the trip was killer," she said. "But once I actually got off the airplane and walked out and saw the outside of the airport and got outside the American scenery, it was definitely worth it. Feeling the warm rain was an incredible experience."
The trip inspired Perusse, a senior, to study to become a traveling nurse who helps people in needy countries.
The trip was exhausting for Brown and Bowker, but they said watching their students grow in Costa Rica made the work worth it. The trip was a breakthrough experience for many students that will change them forever, Brown said.
"It was a rite of passage," he said. "Just from the symbolic end of getting a passport and being there when their passports were stamped, there was a huge palpable, 'I'm an adult. I'm taking a big step in my life.' The making of memories that are attached to that stamp will be with them forever ... This will be with these kids the rest of their lives."
Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@heraldnet.com.
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