Gisselle

Gisselle was the third child in her family to attend Mayatan, following her two older brothers here. The friendly, soft-spoken graduate recently returned to Copán for Christmas and stopped by the campus with her cousin to say hello. She attended Mayatan from nursery through 9th grade, which she followed with a bachillerato en ciencias y letras from a bilingual school in San Pedro Sula.

Even though Gisselle had great high school teachers in sciences and English, she liked Mayatan better because of the spacious campus, the number of friends she had here, the close interactions with foreign teachers, and the playgrounds. She laughs at the memory of Mr. Mike Sullivan recording a song for her class and distributing it to them on CD at the end of the year, and was touched by the volunteer work she did in the aldeas. Like many students, she loved acting in Romeo and Juliet and Scrooge with Miss Deborah.

During her first trimester in university at UNITEC, Gisselle lived with a family friend. She did well in school but she wants to transfer from the architecture program to marketing, which seems like a better fit with her to return to Copán and work in hotels and tourism. She comes from a family in the tourist trade, including a café owned by her mother, her aunt's Casa de Todo, and a hotel owned by her grandmother. Gisselle's older brother even makes delicious handmade cheese at Café San Rafael.

She reports that she enjoys working with tourists, which lets her use her English skills, and with such strong ties here, we know that Gisselle will have much to add to the community when she returns for good.