When you move to a new country where you don’t speak the language, your eyes and ears seem to become more sensitive. Suddenly, everything around you is new, and so much of it feels unfamiliar that your brain works at full speed, trying to process all these new impressions. Maybe that is why, during my first year living in Mexico, I felt much more tired than usual. Everyday life in a different language can be exhausting in a way that is difficult to explain. And there is not really a break from it, because every day you have to get used to something new – a different route, a new form of transportation, the way people communicate, their gestures and body language, and all the little things that you once did without even thinking about them.

For at least the first year, you experience a serious cultural shock. It feels as if you are constantly learning how the world works again: where to buy food, where to find something for your home or a medicine you need, where to make a photocopy or withdraw money, how to get the right document, how to make new friends, and, of course, how to understand the language itself. As exhausting as this process can be, it also changes the way you see the world. Every day adds something new to your personal picture of it. You begin to notice details that you might have overlooked before and all of these experiences inevitably find their way into my professional life and my creative work, which, for me, means writing and photography. Perhaps this is one of the reasons photography has always felt so natural to me. A photo doesn’t require me to explain everything in words. It becomes its own visual language – a way of observing, understanding and communicating with the world, even when I don’t have the right words.