Saludos desde Nejapa, Nicaragua!

Our first week in Nicaragua was lecture intensive.  In just five days I learned so much about how to properly work in the communities as foreigners and how to empower the people. Our campus also has a clinic that sees local patients and those that get a throat infection during their first week of internship aka me. Outside of the classroom,  AMOS has treated us very well.  We have buffet style breakfast at 8:00am, refrigerio (snack) around 10:30am in the classroom, buffet style lunch, refrigerio (snack) around 2:30pm and dinner at 6pm so yes, I haven't been missing any meals but I am definitely sweating them off during the night inside my SansBug. The heat is unbearable and fans have become my new best friends. The other people that are doing the internship are really sweet and passionate about public health. We have nurses, veterans, med students, residents, mph candidates and undergraduates in our cohort. Getting to know them has definitely been a great part of the trip so far. Some of the fun things we have done were going to Puerto Salvador Allende and having cappuccino ice cream by the replica house of Ruben Dario, having pizza 5 minutes away from campus with a majestic view, going salsa dancing with the programs coordinators and professor and exploring the city of Leon today! The plans for this week are to leave campus at 7 am and arrive in Fila Grande, Matagalpa by 3pm where we will be checking water filters and hosting a health fair. We are all pretty excited yet scared of what el campo will be like specially since they told us that last year one of the participants woke up with a scorpion laying on top of his mosquito net. Hasta la semana que viene!