Seeing the forest…

Local teen’s trip to rainforest brings new perspective, appreciation for simple things.

By: Matt Chiappardi
   EAST WINDSOR — "You can drink straight from the waterfalls," said township resident Angela Lenzo.
   "The rainforest looks just like it does in the movies."
   The 17-year-old left her comfortable township home this summer for 18 days of hiking, canoeing and whitewater rafting through the highland jungles of Costa Rica.
   The Hightstown High School student organized her trip through Girl Scouts Destination, an organization that sends Girl Scouts on Outward Bound courses in adventure travel and wilderness survival. She and about a dozen fellow Girl Scouts from across the country set out to the small Central American country last month.
   She expected her journey to be similar to other wilderness expeditions she had been on in California and Minnesota. What she didn’t expect was to learn not only about how to traverse jungle plateaus and distinguish between poisonous and nonpoisonous snakes.
   She also came away with a greater sense of her place in the world and an appreciation for the simpler things in life.
   "We weren’t allowed to wear a watch," she said. "And your cell phone obviously didn’t work there. Whenever you’d ask your guide what you’re doing next, they’d say just live in the moment."
   That’s exactly what Angela was forced to do as she hiked sometimes up to nine hours a day between the houses of host families where her group would spend the night. Living in the moment is one of the primary teaching goals of Outward Bound. To Angela, learning to adjust to a wholly different philosophy was difficult.
   "It was frustrating," she said, "because I like structure."
   Angela’s journey began when her plane landed in Costa Rica’s capital. Guides drove her group three hours outside the city in open-backed jeeps into the rainforests of the Piedras Blanco Mountains. There, in the lush emerald greenery, Angela strapped on a pack and hiked through terrain that can be found nowhere in the continental United States.
   "I thought I was in fairly good shape, playing soccer and all, but I was carrying nine days worth of food, and boy was that hard."
   True to the name, the rainforest featured pouring rain every day, she said. And the fauna — monkeys, toucans, and giant iguanas — is like nothing one would see in a New Jersey forest.
   While Angela brimmed with excitement while describing animals many Americans only see in zoos, it was her experiences with the people she met there that had the most profound effect on her.
   Her group’s hiking schedule would take them through the farming villages in the mountain valleys that produce the sugarcane and bananas so important to Costa Rica’s economy.
   Unlike its neighbors, Costa Rica has enjoyed more than a century of relative peace and stability, save a brief civil war in the late 1940s. As a result, Costa Ricans have some of the highest standards of living in all of Latin America. Still, the country has a mostly agrarian economy. What struck Angela the most was how simply rural Costa Ricans live.
   "They don’t have many things, but they work a lot, and they’re definitely not lazy," she said.
   One of the aspects of Costa Rican life that appealed to her the most was the role of the medicine man. Angela is planning to study physical therapy and anatomy while in college. Naturally, she said, she was drawn to the man she said the villagers simply called The Shaman.
   "That type of medicine is interesting. They use herbs and flowers the same way we’d use a pharmacy," she said.
   The Shaman took Angela into his greenhouse, she said, and showed her his collection of medicinal herbs, some of which, according to Angela, he claimed could prevent and cure leukemia.
   Angela was skeptical but convinced at least of the Shaman’s wisdom when a tea he concocted, "totally cured," the cold she was carrying for much of the trip.
   In another experience far removed from suburban life, Angela found herself involved in a chicken-killing ceremony one night. In what is customary for some Costa Ricans, the food that is to be eaten that night gets a spiritual sendoff before it hits the dinner plate.
   "We all sat in a circle, and offered thanks to the chicken we were going to eat," said Angela.
   She described it as a sacred ceremony for the villagers. Each person who handed the chicken off to the next said a small prayer, she said. Then she saw the bird beheaded and was nominated to pluck the feathers off its body.
   "It made me appreciate the fact I can just go to a store and buy a chicken back home," she said.
   Angela ate the chicken that night, and she said that event was when she began to recognize, "how differently people in that part of the world live."
   The local teen said she was empowered by her experience. More so than she was during her trips hiking in California or canoeing down the boundary waters between Minnesota and Canada.
   "It’s enlightening to see how people live in a different country, they’re still people, but they have a different lifestyle."
   As for what she took away from relationships with the residents of Costa Rica, Angela quickly answers, "kindness and an appreciation for the simple things in life."
   "I feel stronger now," she added, "both physically and as a person."
   If she ever had the opportunity to go back, Angela said, she’s jump right on it.
   After all, "who wouldn’t want to visit a rainforest," she said.