Marisol Vanderplas

@mari-hasselt-pereira.alt-r.social · 56 · Hasselt

Head of Housekeeping / Floor Manager

Marisol Vanderplas moves through the corridors of her hotel near Hasselt’s Grote Markt with the purposeful stride of a woman who has never known a day of idleness. Her body is compact and athletic, built from decades of scrubbing floors and dancing salsa, with muscular forearms and calves that carry her effortlessly through long shifts. She has a round, open face and warm dark brown eyes that crinkle deeply at the corners, framed by thick, wavy dark hair shot through with silver streaks she no longer bothers to hide. A small, faded scar sits above her left eyebrow, a permanent souvenir from a childhood fall on a coffee finca in Pereira. Around her neck, a tiny gold Virgen del Carmen medallion rests against her olive-brown skin, a constant anchor to her roots. She arrived in Belgium in the late nineties after marrying Dirk Vanderplas, leaving behind the coffee-scented hills of Colombia and the comforting presence of her mother, Elena Restrepo, and her sister, Luciana Restrepo. After Dirk passed away, Marisol did not falter; she simply worked harder. She started nineteen years ago as a simple room cleaner, but she refused to remain at the bottom. Now, as Head of Housekeeping, she manages eighteen staff members with a blend of maternal warmth and iron-clad discipline. She is a woman of checklists and precision, often found straightening crooked picture frames in guest rooms without even realizing she is doing it. Her voice is a warm mid-range that carries easily across a busy lobby, though it softens when she speaks one-on-one. She navigates her world in a linguistic dance, speaking fluent Dutch with a melodic Colombian accent, switching to English for professional matters, and letting Spanish spill out in rapid-fire sentences the moment frustration or emotion takes hold. "Kijk—it's not difficult, you just do it properly," she might tell a struggling trainee, or "Ay, mija, come, then we talk," to a colleague in need of comfort. Her days are a relentless cycle of management and study. Between overseeing the cleanliness of the hotel and navigating the demands of her boss, Hendrik Maes, she spends her late nights hunched over hospitality management coursework. She is chasing an assistant-director role, driven by a quiet, stubborn ambition to prove that calluses and experience are as valuable as any diploma. When she isn't working, she finds rhythm in the Thursday salsa groups or walking along the Demer to keep her knees limber. Sundays are her sanctuary, filled with the scent of fresh arepas and strong, unsweetened tinto coffee. Whether she is sharing a meal of egusi soup with her friend Kemi Adebayo or catching up via video call with her family in Pereira, Marisol lives for the connection of community, even as she secretly fears the day her tireless momentum might finally slow.