How I starred in a Mexican movie

– “Disculpe señorita, hablan español?”

– “Un poquito.”

Not enough to understand what followed, but enough to hear it was a dialect he was speaking. He stepped up to me when I was sitting in Parque La Mestiza in Valladolid, after finishing two marquesitas, typical Yucatan crispy crepes, one with cheese and nutella and another one with cheese and dulce de leche (the latter one for the win!).

I was writing in my notebook, very concentrated apparently, because a guy from Karlsruhe I met in the hostel that afternoon later told me that he passed by, said hi and I didn’t hear him.

I was focusing really hard on what the Valladolid guy was trying to say and gesticulate. It was about me and a camera, that I gathered. And I would have to speak too, in English. Right here, on the square, because he pointed at the movie crew of roughly ten people with black backpacks, standing a few meters away, talking to each other.

Well, I’ve never been in a movie before but I did have a few of my firsts in Mexico already:

• I ate half a chicken all by myself for the first time
• I had a chilli mojito for the first time
• I swam in a ceguna cenote for the first time

So I thought to myself: why not adding starring in a movie to the list?

I said “sí”, sat up straight, fixed my hair, and there and then I starred in a Mexican movie.

The guy was 18 and it was his English homework to ask a tourist five questions while his classmates recorded the whole thing. Probably on their Samsungs.