Thursday, July 3, 2014

Orefeo

by Jessica Silva 
Enjoying an evening stroll in the piazza, I was stopped by a lanky gentleman in a fedora. I had seen this gentleman several times, always strolling through the piazza with a contemplative look and a glimmer in his eye. I have been curious to learn more about this man’s story since our arrival in Cagli; today I finally had the opportunity to speak with him.

His name is Orfeo. He is a very talkative and fascinating man. We spent half an hour trying to communicate with each other, each of us inserting the few words we understood in the other’s language. It was a very (internally) frustrating situation. Nothing about Orfeo was frustrating; I was frustrated with the language barrier because I had been curious about Orfeo since my arrival and now I had my opportunity to speak with him and I couldn’t understand! Although I was struggling to find the correct Italian words to say (and he, English) we continued to communicate with one another through non-verbal and written cues.

I left Orfeo this guessing what my conversation was about with him. I picked up a few key words like, “bella”, “inferno”, “mille” and “mitologia”, so assumed that Orfeo was trying to speak to me about Greek or Roman mythology but I had no way to be sure.

Later in the evening I ran into Orfeo again. This time I had someone fluent in Italian with me. Our conversation began rather similarly to the previous one, only this time it was being translated. It turns out that my assumption about our earlier communication was accurate. Although Orfeo and I were struggling to communicate to each other verbally, our non-verbal interactions helped us find the missing pieces and carry out our message.

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