found in translaton

Sometimes the most enjoyable things about being a Peace Corps volunteer have nothing to do with service.

When I feel most in demand and capable to help people, and also when people seem the most grateful for my assistance are the times when I can provide an accurate and immediate translation for someone in need.

Once a man came into the health center looking for me. He heard there was a bilingual American working there. He had recently come from the United States and needed to fax his old job an authorization for his brother to pick up his last paycheck. He dictated, I wrote and he signed the document. In that moment, I knew that I was better able to help him than anyone else in the whole village.

My old host mother from training is an orderly who takes care of a sick American living in Guatemala (Don’t ask me why). She would occasionally ask me to write down things to help her communicate with her patient. In our last “lesson” she asked me, “¿Como se dice ‘trague’ en ingles?”

“Swallow,” I told her, and wrote out sua-lo.

“¿Y para decir, ‘tome”?”

“Drink.”

“¿Y, ‘haga popó’?

I paused for a minute. My host mother was asking me how to ask someone to have a bowel movement. Defecate? That didn’t seem right. Too formal. Take a poo? Too casual. Slowly, I wrote down “Poop.” I looked at it again and erased it. In its place I wrote “Please poop.”

A group of medical missionaries (the non-aggressive, Presbyterian type) has been in a town called Jacaltenango for two weeks. Since none of the doctors speak English, PCVs in Jacal recruited their peers to translate for the doctors.

I spent all day Monday in dentistry room, where locals with an acute need for extraction came to see an American dentist.

“Tell her it’s normal to feel shaky after having four teeth pulled.”

"Tell him this will prick a little."

"Tell her she'll feel pressure, but she shouldn't feel pain."

"Tell him I love Jesus."

In doing so, I realized that I was really no less of a tool than the syringe, mirror or gloves that the dentist used to do her job. What’s more, I discovered that I loved it. For the first time in a long time I felt in demand, useful, and like I was providing a real service to people in need (things I hoped I would feel on a regular basis as a Peace Corps volunteer).