Melissa

Melissa is an ambitious Mayatan graduate who is pursuing a medical degree at Costa Rica's Universidad de Ciencias Medicinas. Despite living and studying abroad, she looks forward to coming back home on her breaks: all the people she grew up with and care about are here, and Mayatan is an important part of that experience.

Melissa has a life-long interest in medicine that she began to pursue even when she was a youngster at Mayatan. When medical brigades came through town seeking translators, Melissa was known as the go-to Mayatan student. Those medical missions and the problems she saw first-hand left a lasting impression.

Melissa had a wonderful career as a Mayatan student, beginning in Pre-K at the tender age of 3 1/2 years. She remembers Miss June and Mr. Eric particularly fondly, even if Mr. Eric often put her and the class to work building gardens when they misbehaved. Following Mayatan, Melissa went to La Ceiba to finish High School at Mazapan, where Mr. Eric also happened to move. "I told him that he was following me around," she laughs.

Now Melissa is interested in surgery--abdominal surgery is one of her current favorites--and she wants to practice in Honduras, particularly in Copán Ruinas. That would be a challenge even greater than 6 years of medical school: there is currently no hospital in town, but Copanecos are notoriously resourceful ... they founded Mayatan when there was no bilingual school, after all.