LATAM Guy
New friend - Renzo
When he told me the name, I asked him " Rento"?
I was all for respecting the name, respecting another culture and etymology; although it did sound like Italian Rent.
But no, the name was RenZo.
He is a Canadian, originally from Peru. Spending time with him means watching fantastic movies, which one may never get hold of otherwise. Through sheer ingenuity he has created a surround sound space, the difference of which can be felt immediately.
He explains his culture, the influences etc..using a large world map and Peru tv from the internet. He explains sea-surfing by standing on his snowboard and manipulating it.
His place has these things lying around which are pure marvellouciousness; like a big upturned boat in the snowy garden and a foosball table behind his two well -used cycles.
And then he says to me -
Sorry for ths place, its small and messed up.
And i am like..DUHHHHHHH
I dont like assuring people, saying `No no no! Your place is fine`.
So, I dont respond
but I feel the duh.
And then I make tea which is dark and bitter and i am really surprised that he likes it, and suspicious that he is just drinking it out of politeness
We sit and watch a bone-chilling movie
My feet are up front, one over the other.
We both are lookin at the screen
and he says ``Hey, you hav beautiful feet!``
And i am like..
err..okkk
umm..thx.
His English is not the best. He wants to say that among women, I am tall and he says to me `You are too tall to be a woman.`` Great.
I explain the joke in the sentence to him but we are caught between a subtle joke and Renzo on the brink of apology, and him not getting the joke, and me just trying to shift the whole thing to `Don't you see how funny it is in concept' till we wisely change the topic. One of my dislikes, and I categorically say so, is explaining jokes to a person who is familiar with another language. It happened once earlier, with Cedric, a Frenchman.