Late this afternoon (Sunday), Leslie was cooking and the burner went out.  I was out so she called me and gave me the news.  No problem I thought, because everyone’s on small propane gas tanks and when they run out, you just call the little gas store in the neighborhood and they’ll bring a full tank around in 15-20 minutes or so.

But with my (still) limited español, I wasn’t ready to call so I just walked there – closed!

Hmm – but I’d also known about this other place in the back alley on the way to our lavandería (laundry) so I thought I’d check it out.

The door was open so I tentatively walked into the private courtyard and cried out “Hola” (hello or hi) a few times.  Ah – success!  I found a corner where  a number of tanks were sitting and in limited español explained my problem.  However, I also knew there are different tank nozzles and you’ve got to pick the correct gas distributor for your tank.  Didn’t know if these folks had the same type tank as mine, so I said I’d bring my tank over and they’d take a look at it.

Yes! They looked at my empty tank and said their tanks would fit with my little distributor valve back in the apartment, so I paid 110 quetzales (about $14) for 35 pounds of gas.  The full tank I knew would be about 50 pounds to carry back so Leslie came along with me to help carry it back a couple of blocks.

We’re somewhat curiosities here in town.  Even though Xela is a huge destination point for foreigners wanting to learn Spanish, we still get lots of looks (especially blondes like Leslie).  So two very much foreigners carrying a tank of gas through the local street drew interest!

Before we left the courtyard, I asked the young boy who brought out our new tank to take our picture.

Sandra, the woman from whom I bought the tank, and her kids loved looking at the picture so I asked if I could take theirs. Sure!  But who really loved looking at the “family portrait” were the two little kids!