#174-people need help

I arrived in Lanquin and started looking for a hostel. Lanquin is a village so it’s easy to walk around. Before I head to Lanquin I had saved some names of the few hostels that are in Lanquin. I saw this little hostel, it looked nice from the outside, I walked in and there was this nice lady and her daughter who greeted me and showed me the place, and with their beautiful smile and the beautiful clean place I really liked it but it didn’t have internet so I decided to look somewhere else. I visited other hostels but noticed they were too on the party side with many tourists and I like to experience the culture and get to hear the locals share their experiences. So I went back to that first hostel and they explained that they just started and Cecibelle the daughter of the owner started showing me around. She told me they recently opened and they cannot yet afford to have internet because the village is in the middle of nowhere the only way to get internet is through satellite connection which could cost around 150 Canadian dollars a month, something they cannot afford right now. She also showed me few things and I noticed the hostel is still missing few things. I offered to help them but I think she was a little shy to ask for help. Next day it was the beginning of the week and she had to leave with her son to go to the city (Coban) because he goes to a school there and they only come to Lanqun on weekends.

Next day, I spoke to the mother (Senora Marina) and I told her I was going to help them to make a place for a washer they want to buy and they wanted to keep it under the stairs but they didn’t want to put it directly on the sand. So I went ahead and built a little cement base to put the washer on. The work was harder than I expected because it was hot and humid. I also needed to remove a lot of sand to make a space and to level the earth so the washer will stand correctly. Senora Marina was really appreciative and throughout my stay Senora Marina treated me like her son. She even offered to let me stay for free at her hostel, but I refused because I felt what’s the meaning of helping her if I am going to get paid.

Senora Marina even cooked for me some traditional recipe to help me with my upset stomach. I guess it’s either from the pancakes or because I ate some street food, which I find delicious and give me a taste of the authentic food, but sometimes it may not be clean or because my body is not used to it. Still, that didn’t prevent me of visiting around the place. I went to see the cave close to Lanquin and went to the water falls in Semuc-Champay. It was always hot and humid but there was also a lot of water so it was refreshing every time I saw some water I would just take a dip.