Last night, I went walking down by the river, looking for Pokémon (It’s exercise!). The sun had set a while before, so things were pretty dark except for the occasional working light in Keelboat Park.

From almost beyond the reach of the light, a man emerged from the parking lot. “Speak Spanish?”

I shook my head and said no.

Approaching me, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, opened an app and spoke into it. The autotranslation was a jumble and he quickly realized it so he tried again with something different.

The translation on the phone said, “look like a woman with a child”.

My first thought was, “Is he calling me fat?”

He was friendly so I dismissed that.

He then pantomimed pushing something at waist height.

Ah! Yes. I had seen a woman pushing a baby stroller down the walking path a few minutes earlier.

I nodded, copied his stroller-pushing movement and pointed the direction I saw her go.

“Five? Ten?”

“Five minutes, yes.” as I held up my hand and five fingers, because I’m a dork.

He said thanks and was walking back to his truck when he turned back around and asked, “Short?”

“Yes, short.” as I held up my hand to about my belly, because she was short and I’m a dork.

He said thanks again and headed off. Nice guy.

I’m glad that you don’t have to speak English to be in this country, because otherwise I would have even less of a story to tell.

Also, he made more sense than many of the English-speaking people I know.