Picture Time

By Annagrisel Alvarez
BEING A FOREIGNER in any country is exciting and overwhelming at the same time. I think one of the most hilarious experiences I have had so far in Cagli happened one day when I went for a walk.

I was walking at a fast pace. First, an older man told me something I didn’t understand, and as he was speaking to me I stopped. I said, “va bene?” And he just made a gesture like telling me “calm down, stop.” I think that his problem was the way I was walking and he was telling me to hold and walk slowly.

I kept walking. I saw something that called my attention and I started taking pictures of myself in the town. Some nearby teenagers started laughing. I decided to stop. I thought, “Maybe this is something you don’t do in Europe, I’d rather ask someone to take the picture for me.”

I asked a guy walking my same direction if he could take a picture of me. I just said “fotografia?” He said yes! The next thing I know, he is posing and taking the picture of both of us with his camera. Of course I didn’t say any detail so that he could understand that I wanted a picture of me. But to me, it was amazing how open he was, how even if I would have meant to take a picture with him, he was okay with that and took the time to do it. Personally I would never imagine that a person wants a person with me in a photograph, instead of taking the picture. Second, I think that I wouldn’t have even stopped.

The story finishes when after having taken the picture I gave him my camera and I said, “Io, qui” and I pointed the background. Just then he figured what I meant on the first place and laughed, and laughed. I started laughing too and I said, “Grazie” to what he responded with a big smugly laugh-smile saying, “Sorry, I speak English.”