After a long term in LACS 20 talking about international relations, service, development, and responsibility, the class has finally come to a close. I’ve learned a ton these past 10 weeks, and more importantly, what I’ve learned has been truly applicable to my life. This class has brought up concerns and considerations about development and service that I’d never considered before, and has made me think deeply about topics that I might never have noticed had I not sat through this course. As someone interested in travel, medicine, and international service, I believe that taking this class has predisposed me to be a great deal more responsible in my future endeavors. I have a deeper understanding of what service-learning is and what it means to partner with, not seek to “help” a community abroad.

Now, it’s time to move on the part that we’ve all been waiting for – our CCESP trip to Nicaragua. I am nervous, excited, worried, hopeful, and just about going out of my mind with anticipation. Even with 10 weeks of prep, it still snuck up on me.

So now what? I’m packing my bags, taking my malaria medication, and planning for the implementation of my final project with Kate and Valentina. We had such tremendous success in starting the conversation about maternal mental health at the DHMC Women’s Resource Center here in New Hampshire, and I can’t help but hope that our results will be just as good at the casa materna. We have a polaroid camera and film ready to photograph any willing women (and kids!) and a list of questions that will hopefully elicit answers about the emotional state of pregnant women and new mothers in Nicaragua. Maternal mental health is such a taboo subject of conversation, even here in the States – any conversation that we can get going, even if it occurs after we’re gone, would be a huge victory in my book.

I can’t help but feel like the learning has just begun. 10 weeks in a classroom is a lot of hours to put in, but I have a feeling that the two weeks we spend in Nicaragua will be just as educational, if not more so. I feel so ready to immerse myself in that, to experience everything that the country and the people can offer me, and to hopefully lose myself in the service of a greater good for at least a little bit of every day.