PARIS – Some Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School Spanish students got a hands-on lesson recently when they traveled to Costa Rica to volunteer their time to paint a schoolyard fence, but came home with a lifetime of memories.

“I know full well what I teach in a classroom is limited. Most kids won’t remember a lick of Spanish when they’re older,” said Spanish teacher David Knightly, who organized the week-long student trip to Cartago, Costa Rica.

Knightly, who has been a teacher for the past 15 years, including the past three at Oxford Hills High, said he hoped the trip would leave a lifelong impression on the students just as a South American missionary trip he took as a student changed his life forever.

To ensure that the 13 students got a true flavor of the country, he decided to avoid group tours that provided five-star hotels and guided tours in favor of something more hands-on.

“Student groups don’t really get to know the culture and people that I wanted the kids to get to know,” he said.

So he booked the group, that included himself, the students, graphic arts teacher Virginia Valdes and two parents, with the New York-based Cross Cultural Solutions program for a week. Cross Cultural Solutions is a volunteer organization that puts more than 3,000 volunteers in 12 countries and 20 program sites allowing volunteers to help poor countries and let them absorb cultural and learning while there.

The OHCHS group is one of two high school groups to spend volunteer time there since Cartago began accepting volunteer services in February 2004.

Students stayed at a home base in Cartago, working to restore a schoolyard fence while meeting and becoming a part of the local scene. They shared quarters with others, including a woman from England who was there for a month to help work in a daycare center.

Although student Samantha Rivers could have come home with a memory card filled with spectacular scenic shots worthy of a travel brochure, instead her film showed dozens and dozens of pictures of children’s faces, brightly-colored homes surrounded by barbed wire fences, students dancing at a local party, children playing soccer and a close-up of a cow’s face.

“They play soccer all the time,” chuckled Rivers, a junior at OHCHS as she recently looked over nearly 200 pictures she took while in Cartego from April 7-14.

Cartago, the nation’s former capital and third largest city, is located about an hour away from the capital city of San Jose and is home to the Irazu Volcano, the Tapanti National Park and the beautiful La Basilica de Nuestra Senora de los Angeles, the largest cathedral in Costa Rica. The students spent Easter Sunday at La Basilica.

“We met some really cool kids at the church,” Rivers said. The students were later invited to a chaperoned dance. By far, Rivers said, one of the best times the students had was learning how to dance the salsa with the local students.

Although most of the OHCHS students have had several years of Spanish and were given a Spanish lesson while there, Rivers said it was difficult to keep up with the locals. “They spoke so much faster than I comprehended,” she said.

Before they left the country, the OHCHS students painted their hands on a wall with messages and made promises to keep in touch and perhaps visit again.

“By far it exceeded my expectations,” Knightly said of the trip. “My hope is (the students are) changed forever. Judging from the tears when we left, I hope it did.”