I've experienced the benefits of collaboration in multiple ways this week. Firstly, through my LiA. Whilst I am taking a lead on my project and the creation of the teaching case, collaboration has been a necessary driver of this leadership. I've learnt to be attentive to my supervisor, learning from his expertise and working together on tasks that are less familiar to me. To help us develop the project, we've also had to collaborate with a wide variety of stakeholders, and this week I completed my first two interviews (in Spanish) with organisations involved in the public-private partnership. Collaborating with them to help create this tool has been inspiring with how willing everyone is to share their information in the name of helping other leaders create other projects for sustainable health development. 

Collaboration is a crucial meme in my project, given that I am researching a public-private alliance. Learning about the ways multiple organisations are working together to make meaningful and actual change has been nothing but inspiring, and definitely broken some assumptions about how development projects and businesses work! SDG 17 is focused on partnership for the goals, and I'm really motivated by the partnership that is occuring in my research. It's definitely providing much food for thought for where I want my future work to go.

Finally, I couldn't have had as comfortable a week as I have if not for collaboration. The culture in Costa Rica is incredibly friendly, everyone is so willing to share their knowledge, guidance and help. I was able to go to the beach thanks to a trip from my supervisor's parents and aunt. Speaking to them completely in Spanish and getting to know them to the best of my ability whilst I shared stories about England and they shared their wisdom about the Costa Rican environment was so much fun. And I was reminded of the beautiful way that laughter doesn't have a language barrier!