'Las tortugas son mis amigas'.

• Author: Cogen, Ellen
• Position: Student exchange programs

Before I left to be an exchange student in Costa Pica in February of my junior year, I had never been apart from my parents for more than a week. And I never expected to be changed in so many ways in just six months.

I lived with a family in Limon, a port city on the Caribbean coast. Eating rice and beans every day and learning to speak Spanish were my first challenges.

I attended the local school, and one day a group of American high school students with a group called Ecology Project International (EPI) came to visit. EPI brings students from the U.S. to Costa Rica and the Galapagos Islands to work with biologists and learn about sea turtle ecology.

AT THE RESERVE

I was excited to be part of a group of students from Lim6n who were invited to go to a reserve to work with the sea turtles.

During the day, EPI teachers taught us about sea turtle ecology and biology. At night, we each took a four-hour shift walking up and down the beach. When we saw a sea turtle, we took its measurements. Then we collected the eggs it was laying in a bag and relocated them to prevent poachers from stealing the eggs.

(Sea turtles normally lay their eggs on the beach and leave them there. The eggs take about two months to hatch, at which point the baby turtles are on their own. Even under normal circumstances, many of the hatchlings do not survive.)

After our four-day stay at the reserve, I headed back to Lim6n in awe. The next day at school, those of us who had gone to the reserve were eager to share what we'd learned. I was shocked to discover that most of my Costa Rican classmates ate sea-turtle meat and eggs--they're considered delicacies--and didn't have any idea that sea turtles are endangered.

I...