The village of San Martin is dominated by a huge church and marketplace. The housed vary between shags of used wooden planks and corrugated iron and concrete frame constructions. Many of them are not finished, an evidence of unstable remittances of family members working in the US.
The people who live in San Martin are mainly women, children and old people. The young and adult men work in the US or in big cities.
The people belong to the ethnic group of Triquis, famous for their traditional textiles. The women often travel to the towns to sell their products.
A huge problem is the marriage and liaison of minor girls, through early pregnancy confined to the village, constrained to work in he fields and not able to learn writing and reading. A vicious cycle, the Madres on the Congregation of the Inmaculata Niña try to break, giving the girls and boys a stable home.
