Translate This

So I got into the capital yesterday after a few days spent at another volunteer's site translating for a group of engineering students from CSU working with Engineers Without Borders. Basically it was a good experience and I am glad to have tried it out, and will be heading out this afternoon to try out a different sort of translating, for children.

Basically my translating time was spent with a team of the engineers that were surveying the community so they can properly estimate costs for the water project they are working on. Since there were only two translators, and the other was busy with another task for the engineers I was running back and forth between the people by the surveying viewfinder and the pole. That got interesting in spots where curious community members wanted to know why some houses were having marks put in front and others not, and also when some over-zealous men wanted to flirt a bit with the women engineers who don't speak Spanish. It can be hard to notice exactly when and where you should be to translate, especially when someone is barely within your view. Certainly it can be fun to watch the fireworks as complete chaos ensues due to inability to communicate, at least it can be amusing to the party that actually understands what is going on.

Aside from funny occurrences, translating can be an odd job. It is very difficult to keep yourself out of a conversation and instead simply translate what is being said or asked. One good example is that someone will often ask a question that I know the answer to, and I need to remember to pose the question to the other people instead of simply answering it myself. Plus it is hard to know how much of side conversations to translate, since the natural tendency of people who can speak a different language is to use it as a bit of a cover knowing that the other parties will never know exactly what was said. I do enjoy it though and I want to keep trying to do it as time goes on to see if I can get a little better at translating while people are still talking. I think the need to immediately repeat what was said in a different language could also result in better comprehension.