San Marcos

My new home for the next 2 years is the town of San Marcos, in the municipio of San Marcos, in the department of Santa Barbara. It is a pretty small town, it only has about 4,500 people, but it does have a paved main street and, like every town in Honduras a central park with a Catholic church. There are a couple of small restaurants, a bunch of pulperias and small stores. There is a high school, two elementary schools, a Health Center, and a Pregnancy Clinic. Although this might not seem like very much, it is more than Yarumela had and I still haven’t gone very many places in town yet. It is situated about an hour in bus west of San Pedro Sula and about two hours in bus to Santa Barbara city so it’s not far from anything I’d need. Quimistan is another town about ten minutes away, there they have a bunch of restaurants, bakeries, hardware store, and possibly even a hotel, I’ve only quickly passed through but it is pretty nice, another volunteer is stationed there and because it’s in a different municipio we have our separate work zones technically. The municipio of San Marcos is split up into 26 aldeas with a total population of almost 19,000 people, I went to my first aldea today and it was pretty sweet. I’m going to be doing most of my work with the Health Center (going out into the aldeas with doctors) and the educational centers working with the kids. I am also going to be doing some work with the Red Cross, even though they are technically based out of Quimistan, they do some work in some of the aldeas of San Marcos, I’ll probably be helping out with AIN-c, a nutrition/growth program in the aldeas with kids up to 5 years old. My family here is really nice too, my dad (Jose Luis) is the vice-principle of the HS and my mom (Lisbe) is a teacher at one of the elementary schools. I have a 16 year old brother (Jose Luis too) who goes to school in SPS all week, a 10 year old brother Jose Jafet, and a 1.5 year old brother (Jose Yurem). Of course, like all small Honduran towns, half the town is related, making me related to half the town too. Although it might sound like I know what’s going on down here, the reality is that I have no clue what I’m doing or who almost everyone I talk to is, but slowly but surely I’m feeling more at home here, all the kids at both elementary schools already know my name so everywhere I go people shout my name.