Nina in Costa Rica

Participant

Nina

Programme

Internship

Country

🇨🇷 Costa Rica

Duration

4 months

Short bio

My name is Nina and I’m 20 years old. I’m studying Sport and Movement Pedagogy in Zwolle and I’m now in my final year. Alongside my studies I work in a supermarket and spend a lot of time with friends. You can also find me at the gym now and then.

For my course I had to do an internship and I got the chance to do it abroad. After some research on Stagemarkt I came across The Power of Sports, and after reading the stories I knew this was something I wanted to do too!

How satisfied were you with the support before departure?

I had several calls before I left, received clear information, and whenever I had questions they were answered quickly. I liked that there was room financially to change a few things.

My story

“I look back on a fantastic, special and wonderful time. A time in which I enjoyed myself, laughed, made friends for life and had an incredible amount of fun.”

Nina · internship in Costa Rica

On 28 August 2022 my journey to Costa Rica began. I boarded the plane with two other Dutch girls and off we went.. Far away from our parents, family and friends, but I was so looking forward to it. First a short flight to Paris. We had to wait there for a few hours and then flew on for 11 hours to San José, the capital of Costa Rica. A really lovely taxi driver was waiting for us there and took us straight to Andy’s house. After a long day of travelling, Andy had cooked a delicious meal for us and we could soon go to sleep.

The first day was an introduction day. I was really suffering from jet lag that day, but Andy told us about and showed us the history of Esparza and Puntarenas. For the first few days I really had to get used to the time difference. Luckily it only lasted a few days, and after that there was more room to enjoy myself!

As an intern I worked at a school from Monday to Friday, from 09:00 to 14:30. The children find it incredibly interesting where you come from and how everything works in that tiny country on the other side of the ocean. Everyone is super friendly and welcoming. The children have loads of energy and are really grateful for everything. My main task at the school was teaching lots of English lessons, but that wasn’t why I was in Costa Rica. I did still teach English for a few weeks, and on Wednesdays/Fridays I taught sports lessons. I had come to Costa Rica to teach sport and felt I still had to do too many other things. So I told Andy that I’d like to go to a different school where I could teach more sport. This was sorted quickly, and after that my days mainly consisted of teaching volleyball. Great fun!

Once you’ve finished at school, there’s time to relax or do some of your coursework from back home. I always had weekends off, so I was able to see a lot of the country. We went travelling with other housemates, and that’s how we saw the most beautiful things, had the best experiences and did the craziest things. We took lots of trips to different, stunning islands, visited Panama, released sea turtles and saw loads of animals you’d normally only see behind bars at the zoo.

Four weeks before my internship ended, the schools closed because it was their summer holiday. I was really disappointed about this, because it hadn’t been discussed when I was booking the whole trip. Because of this I did 3 weeks of construction work, think of tasks like scraping paint off the walls. I didn’t enjoy this very much, so I chose to go on holiday on my own for a week. Because communication with this organisation runs smoothly, all sorts of things can be arranged! So it was no problem at all to go on a lovely week’s holiday in Costa Rica.

I look back on a fantastic, special and wonderful time. A time in which I enjoyed myself, laughed, made friends for life and had an incredible amount of fun. I hope you’ll have just as great a time in Costa Rica, and if you have any questions, you’re always welcome to send me a message! xx