Being lost

Written last night:

This morning Zing! and I took an extra-long walk by the library, which is where a woman about half my size approached us. I think it was Zing! who made her feel comfortable doing it. But she couldn’t speak English. She obviously needed help -- she was pleading with me, using her eyes and gesturing to a bag she carried. Finally I heard the word “Taiwan." I asked, “Mandarin?” and she shook her head NO. The only other word that I understood was “27.” Maybe she wanted to go to 27th Street,  I drew a map. It was a long walk. I pointed to a bus passing by. She looked at me, completely lost. And I have felt that way too. 


So I walked with her down I Street, past the government offices, asking people we met if they knew anyone who could understand my new lost friend.  Finally we got to the front of the California Environmental Protection Agency building, where two men stopped, and they worked on it, using a phone translation ap. “Where are you going?” one man asked, and the phone translated that to Taiwanese, which she listened to, and then answered in Taiwanese, which the phone translated into English. Then the men thought of a co-worker who might speak her language, and they called and asked her to come outside. Quickly she appeared. The two women talked briefly, and in this way we learned the lost woman was looking for Meals on Wheels, and she was heading to a central location on 27th Street — where it’s prepared, I think. But she had no idea how to get there. 


”You should wait at home,” the woman told her. “You don’t have to pick it up. They will deliver it.” 

The woman understood, and turned back toward the street, and I said I’d see that she got home. 

“But wait,” one man said. “Are you hungry now?” 

His co-worker translated and my friend shook her head NO, not hungry. 

We warmly thanked them, and they wished us well, and I walked the woman back to her home, which is an apartment across from the train station on  J Street. As soon as we got within her block she brightened, greeting in her language several people who passed by. She wanted Zing! and me to go inside and wait with her, but we thanked her and left. 

Love,
k