International E-Weeks: The Joy of Exploration

Sixteen students and two Bush faculty members flew to Costa Rica in May for their E-Week experience. Every spring, all Middle School classes pause  for “Experiential Week,” a program in which students immerse themselves in experiential learning opportunities around Seattle and across the globe. Though the goals of the trip can vary slightly from year to year, the core components revolve around the students’ education about sustainability, culture, and the environment. 

To begin last spring’s Costa Rica trip, students explored Tortuguero National Park and learned about its unique ecotourism model. The preserved land surrounds a fishing village, and the Costa Rican government has worked with the village to ensure its sustainability through preserving the turtles’ habitat and having tourists visit the area. The middle part of the trip provided students with the opportunity to try their hand at whitewater rafting and hiking in the dense rainforest. After the students became more acclimated to the country, the trip concluded with a homestay at a local community whose existence depends on an agritourism model. 

E-Week Coordinator and Eighth Grade Spanish teacher Sarah Kennedy, one of the leaders for the Costa Rica trip, has been going on the trip since 2012. One of the highlights for her was when the students learned to swim a huge river rapid during the adventuring section of their trip.

“The joy of the students is also balanced by anxious trepidation,” she said. “And when you manage to succeed, there’s also that joy of relief.” 

Some students ended up swimming the rapid multiple times, and one of the stronger swimmers even paired off with another student who was less certain about the rapid so that they could do it together. These experiences built up a shared sense of camaraderie and belonging within a group of mixed grades that didn’t know each other before the trip.

River rafting and rapids are also a highlight for Middle School science teacher and trip leader Tom Wise. 

“My personal passion, along with teaching, is running whitewater rivers, and Costa Rica has some of my favorite rivers,” he said. “I love that the Bush E-Week program allows and encourages me to combine both of these passions.”

Another highlight for Sarah was reconnecting with the same homestay families she had known from previous trips but had not seen for the past three years. 

“There was joy the second we got off the bus in the community,” Sarah recalled. “One of the community members was in tears that we had come back.” Families remembered students from past trips and shared photos and memories with Sarah as well.

Groups of two to three students were assigned to different homestay families in the village. For the students, connecting with locals in an non-native language, in houses and a setting vastly different from their own lives in the U.S., posed its own set of challenges.

“As a bit of an introvert, I get super nervous when talking with people, but the community around me, both the new people I met over the trip and my peers who came alongside me, made me feel more comfortable,” Melat A. ’28 said. 

Others leaned on their fellow students who were more comfortable speaking Spanish to help break through the language barrier or found other ways to connect with their host families, such as drawing pictures or acting things out. The group also helped the community through service projects, like repainting a sports court and refinishing desks at the local church.

“E-Weeks are about encountering a risk, be it physical or perceived, and finding your way through to the other side,” Sarah said.  

The trip left a lasting impact on the students. 

“The whole trip was an amazing chance to see and feel what life is like in such an amazing country,” Jack D. ’27 said.

For Dorothy S. ’28, “being able to go on this trip and be out of the country without any of my family within 1,000 miles helped me learn how to take care of myself and ask for help.” 

Following the trip, Melat felt more confident being social at school, and Dorothy will forever remember falling out of her rafting boat and floating down the river as it snaked through a tall canyon.

“I pulled myself back into the boat dripping in the joyfulness of being somewhere I would never exactly be again,” Dorothy said. 

by Colin Murray, Communications Manager