Hola familias de Chicago!

Today we started off with some tasty pancakes for breakfast, then gathered for our morning meeting, where we discussed the theme of the day.

What does environmental justice mean to you?

Well, today we learned what it means to us. Andres (Fofo) Zúñiga, an environmental manager joined us to talk more about environmental justice. We discussed the importance of communities being involved in eco-tourism and the negative/positive impacts that big cooperations have on the community and environment of Costa Rica. We learned that many of the luxury hotels that exist in Costa Rica exploit the natural lands and people. We learned that tourism in Costa Rica is the main source of economic wealth and more about the significance of preserving the natural environment while developing those tourist locations. Afterward, Andres split us up into three groups and asked us to participate in a debate. Each group represented the government, a 5-star luxury hotel, and the local people of Costa Rica.

After our long and intriguing debate with many opinions, we had some downtime. As usual people played ping pong, and card games, and took naps. The girls, however, had a dance party with some throwback music!

(Fun fact, we learned that the United States is 192 times the size of Costa Rica.)

Miss you all and good night!

Nadia and Vanessa <3