Last Saturday Costa Rican’s national newspaper, La Nación, reported that only nine of the 81 subdivisions of the country receive water of optimal quality. Such were the findings of a recent study regarding equal access to potable water and its relation to development and health in Costa Rica. Of the remaining subdivisions, 26 received the second highest rating of medium to high unequal access to water, and a frightening majority of 46 subdivisions received the lowest rating of very high unequal access to water. Therefore, of the approximately 4.1 million people that live in Costa Rica, 1.8 receive water of poor quality.
According the La Nación, The study evaluated five variables: population that receives water in their homes, potability, quality-control programs, treatment and disinfection of liquids, and the number of service operators. The study found, not surprisingly, that the areas with the worst access to potable water are also the poorest areas of the country.
Study abroad is more than just traveling to beaches on the weekend and remembering not to drink the water. In order to make a study abroad experience worthwhile, you have to learn to live in the country. This integration into the country entails a preoccupation of the nation’s issues. For example, I have learned that poverty and inequality are two of the most pressing concerns of Latin America as a whole.
As a foreigner and especially as an American, it is easy to shake your head at sub-developed areas of the world. You can feel annoyed, confused, and wonder why everything is not more “organized” like it is back home. However, it is important to realize that you are no longer comfortably at home, and instead of becoming angered by these situations, it is more beneficial to try to understand them. Certainly, having safe water to drink in your home in the States is not a fathomable issue, so when you do read about it happening in another country, the issue does not sink in because it is not something we have ever had to deal with. However, when you live in a developing country and you see children bathing in a dirty river, the issue becomes real. When you do forget that you should not drink the water and spend the next two weeks with major intestinal issues, reality sets in.
Concerning these aspects, study abroad is not always fun. You are often faced with real life images you would be hard pressed to encounter as you are leaving Target in American suburbia. However, I believe these issues and difficulties are potentially the most important characteristics of studying abroad. In order to be life-long affected by the experience in your host country, you have to turn off your Facebook for a minute and pick up a local newspaper to find out what it going on in the country. Only then, after you truly begin to care what is happening, will your study abroad experience not only positively affect you, but rather the country in which you lived.
