Amor Amor Amor Amor AMOS!

After a restful and exciting weekend of hiking and ziplining in Mombacho, we are back at work again! This week, we are finishing up collecting the data from the community and inputting into the system. After that is done, we will finally begin analysis and interpretation of the data! Though community-based data collection can be a slow process, it is so fun to be able to go out into the community and interact with one family at a time and really get to know them. Every home is so welcoming and accommodating to all of us who go visit, and I have gotten to work with some fantastic kids. As we have been entering the data in, it is so interesting to see correlations between certain factors of a mother/caretaker’s life and the development of the child in each individual family. Analyzing the data will give us a clear idea of what the most important factors are in early childhood development for Nejapa, and then we will be able to present to each sector of Nejapa, showing them what we found specifically for their area of the community. 

On Friday the 19^th, there is a holiday, so we get a long weekend! We will be traveling to San Juan del Sur to go to the beach and see a new area of Nicaragua. After that, we only have two short weeks left with the AMOS staff and consejeras! They have taught us so much and are the most important piece in our research, so I am looking forward to working closely with them for the rest of my time here. I have learned so many new research and data skills (and improved my Spanish) in such a short time, and there is so much I will continue to reflect on as I finish up the internship and then return to the United States!