I signed up for OVFRIENDS with a very clear goal: to find a native speaker to practice Spanish with. I sent out a few friend requests, but the first person to reply was someone with a rather brief bio: “Marco. Lima, Peru. Likes photography.”
Our first conversation wasn’t about grammar or vocabulary. He asked me about the colors of the markets in Saigon. I asked him about the sunlight on the Inca ruins. Marco, a photographer, taught me a language even more wonderful than Spanish: the language of images. He taught me how to see the world through an imaginary viewfinder, how to find beauty in the simplest things.