Another version of the same story, this one more about Mateo.
Eric Moore
WA 4
I struggled with this assignment at first, because I didn’t know who would be good to talk about and bring to life. I thought about writing about Jesus, I thought about writing about a person from days of old. But nothing seemed right. I didn’t think I knew enough about any one person to write a good narrative about them. But after speaking with you on Tuesday and hearing your interest in my Rome narrative got me thinking that I could describe a person to you that I met and talked with after the events that I previously wrote about.
After I left the little building we were in, I paced around. I was irritated. I was mad at myself. I didn’t know what I was going to do. To sum the series of events up, I went to the Embassy in Rome. They let me call the director in Spain. I don’t know at this point if I called my mom then or not. I do know that after two hours of expensive international calls, they had to ask me to leave. I walked around Rome for some time, looking for my roommate’s hostel. He and I were in Rome at the same time but we weren’t traveling together. I had a vague idea of where it was, but no one knew of it. It rained for a few hours while I was walking around. My memory serves to tell me that it was about four to five hours of walking in rain, but that might be an exaggeration. I found a few hotels that I went into, but they wouldn’t help me because I wasn’t a client and I didn’t have any money. Finally, in the fourth hotel, I walked in and stood there. The man behind the desk sized me up. I started to tell him my story. I don’t remember which language I told it in, since he understood more than one. He struggled with wanting to help, but not wanting to get himself into trouble. He asked me to stand outside once more, because he was going to leave his desk and didn’t want to leave me there alone. I stood outside for a couple of minutes and got just a little wetter, nothing compared to the puddle I left on the floor of the hotel.
The man returned with a towel and a couple plastic wrapped croissants. He let me back in and he looked at me again. Because I waited, and because he clearly could see that I had been walking around in the rain the whole night, he agreed to send a text from his phone to the director in Spain, telling her where I was. She responded, and once found out that I was there, booked a room on her credit car for me to stay.
By now, my socks had turned green, because not only was I walking around in them the whole day but I had forgotten to pack more than one pair. The man, whose name was Mateo, agreed to take me around somewhere to buy more socks. That night, I went to sleep and got the best sleep I had gotten in a long time. It was quiet and the bed was much bigger than the bed I was sleeping on in Spain. The next morning, I went with Mateo, bought some socks, and agreed to take a two hour train ride to his house. I got to see some of the Roman countryside that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. We went to local store and bought some food to eat and made some spaghetti.
Now comes the part where I actually describe him. Mateo is one of the strangest people I have ever met, but I guess that does come with being a European. Originally, he was born in South America, Colombia I believe, but he went to Europe later. He’s about my height with darker skin and very dark hair. He’s very handy; in addition to his job at the hotel, he also designs the interiors of houses. His is very simple and eloquent, and he showed me a magazine that actually featured the interior of his house. The most unique and defining thing about him, and one that will not strike you the first time you lay eyes on him, is that he’s Jewish. So, in addition to his limited English, fluent Spanish and Italian, he’s fluent in Hebrew. When I first found this out, I was afraid of offending him. I was a guest in his house. We did talk of Jesus and the Messiah, and he gave this example. To him, the Jesus of the bible has the wrong color passport. He said that when I came into the hotel and told him that I was American, he believed me because I’m tall, white, and I have a blue passport. He said that if I wasn’t those things or if I had a green passport, then he wouldn’t have believed me. To him, Jesus has the wrong color passport; that is, he doesn’t meet the qualifications or conditions of the Messiah he is waiting for. After this, talk of religion ceased until I asked him about a tattoo on his upper right arm. It’s of a thin circle that is not quite complete. There’s a piece missing. I asked him about it, and he told me that it signifies something in his life that is not there. It’s something he’s missing, something he hasn’t found yet. When he said this, I knew that I was supposed to tell him of my full life in Christ. But I didn’t. I was afraid.
I know that there is an overlap between this and the previous writing assignment, but that is because I’m telling the same story from different points of view, one of the events, one of the person.
WA 4
I struggled with this assignment at first, because I didn’t know who would be good to talk about and bring to life. I thought about writing about Jesus, I thought about writing about a person from days of old. But nothing seemed right. I didn’t think I knew enough about any one person to write a good narrative about them. But after speaking with you on Tuesday and hearing your interest in my Rome narrative got me thinking that I could describe a person to you that I met and talked with after the events that I previously wrote about.
After I left the little building we were in, I paced around. I was irritated. I was mad at myself. I didn’t know what I was going to do. To sum the series of events up, I went to the Embassy in Rome. They let me call the director in Spain. I don’t know at this point if I called my mom then or not. I do know that after two hours of expensive international calls, they had to ask me to leave. I walked around Rome for some time, looking for my roommate’s hostel. He and I were in Rome at the same time but we weren’t traveling together. I had a vague idea of where it was, but no one knew of it. It rained for a few hours while I was walking around. My memory serves to tell me that it was about four to five hours of walking in rain, but that might be an exaggeration. I found a few hotels that I went into, but they wouldn’t help me because I wasn’t a client and I didn’t have any money. Finally, in the fourth hotel, I walked in and stood there. The man behind the desk sized me up. I started to tell him my story. I don’t remember which language I told it in, since he understood more than one. He struggled with wanting to help, but not wanting to get himself into trouble. He asked me to stand outside once more, because he was going to leave his desk and didn’t want to leave me there alone. I stood outside for a couple of minutes and got just a little wetter, nothing compared to the puddle I left on the floor of the hotel.
The man returned with a towel and a couple plastic wrapped croissants. He let me back in and he looked at me again. Because I waited, and because he clearly could see that I had been walking around in the rain the whole night, he agreed to send a text from his phone to the director in Spain, telling her where I was. She responded, and once found out that I was there, booked a room on her credit car for me to stay.
By now, my socks had turned green, because not only was I walking around in them the whole day but I had forgotten to pack more than one pair. The man, whose name was Mateo, agreed to take me around somewhere to buy more socks. That night, I went to sleep and got the best sleep I had gotten in a long time. It was quiet and the bed was much bigger than the bed I was sleeping on in Spain. The next morning, I went with Mateo, bought some socks, and agreed to take a two hour train ride to his house. I got to see some of the Roman countryside that I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. We went to local store and bought some food to eat and made some spaghetti.
Now comes the part where I actually describe him. Mateo is one of the strangest people I have ever met, but I guess that does come with being a European. Originally, he was born in South America, Colombia I believe, but he went to Europe later. He’s about my height with darker skin and very dark hair. He’s very handy; in addition to his job at the hotel, he also designs the interiors of houses. His is very simple and eloquent, and he showed me a magazine that actually featured the interior of his house. The most unique and defining thing about him, and one that will not strike you the first time you lay eyes on him, is that he’s Jewish. So, in addition to his limited English, fluent Spanish and Italian, he’s fluent in Hebrew. When I first found this out, I was afraid of offending him. I was a guest in his house. We did talk of Jesus and the Messiah, and he gave this example. To him, the Jesus of the bible has the wrong color passport. He said that when I came into the hotel and told him that I was American, he believed me because I’m tall, white, and I have a blue passport. He said that if I wasn’t those things or if I had a green passport, then he wouldn’t have believed me. To him, Jesus has the wrong color passport; that is, he doesn’t meet the qualifications or conditions of the Messiah he is waiting for. After this, talk of religion ceased until I asked him about a tattoo on his upper right arm. It’s of a thin circle that is not quite complete. There’s a piece missing. I asked him about it, and he told me that it signifies something in his life that is not there. It’s something he’s missing, something he hasn’t found yet. When he said this, I knew that I was supposed to tell him of my full life in Christ. But I didn’t. I was afraid.
I know that there is an overlap between this and the previous writing assignment, but that is because I’m telling the same story from different points of view, one of the events, one of the person.