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Helping people with language – Making connections through
interpretation
Posted by Kelly Doscher on June 8, 2012
by Kelly Doscher
After my graduation from the French Studies department at The University of Washington, I decided to treat myself to some
cooking classes with a local cooking school. When I registered for the classes I had no idea that the company conducted
culinary tours in France. Soon enough, I found myself tutoring one of the owners in preparation for her upcoming tour of
Provence. It was great fun teaching my newly learned language to someone who was going to actively use it for her
business.
One problem, though – I found myself deeply jealous of her upcoming trip. I realized then that I had found my calling:
translating for culinary tours in France.
Two weeks before my student was to take off to do my dream job, I blurted out,
“Can I come?”
She thought for a minute and said, “OK.”
After I woke up from my momentary lapse of glee (meaning when I pulled myself off of the floor) I immediately bought a
ticket to France and off I went!
One of the most memorable and meaningful events on that trip happened at the Farmer’s Market in Velleron, a small
hamlet just outside of Carpentras. It was a diminutive, twice weekly, evening market where (one could tell) only locals went.
There was a slow but steady cadence to the place with matter-of-fact transactions and little browsing… except for our
group of ten who were reveling in the odors of the mushrooms, and hollering to one another from fifty feet away (a big
cultural no-no in France, by the way), “You have got to try these Cavaillon melons!”
While I was wandering around the parking lot cum market I noticed a short, round, Castilian woman selling her locally
harvested lavender and sunflower honey. Her collapsible, linen-draped card table had only one customer: a guest from our
tour. I knew that she was a beekeeper so when I saw that she was having trouble communicating with the vendor I sidled
over to see if I could be of any assistance.
Before I knew it I was thrust into the middle of a dual-language conversation to which I was the only means for the two
parties to communicate. The topic? You guessed it; bees and beekeeping, a topic I know nothing about. The conversation
was lively and the two ladies sweetly, but semi-impatiently waited for my interpretations. At the end of the fifteen-minute
exchange of nodding, laughter, and loads of hand gestures, we three learned a lot about the differences between, but more
about the similarities of the beekeeping counterparts. No money was exchanged, but rather addresses and gifts of sweet,
liquid gold.
The ladies both thanked me with big hugs and des bises (some French kisses on the cheeks… in Provence it’s three; left,
then right, then left again.) Our tour guest even sent me a letter of thanks when she returned to The States. I still have that
letter as a reminder of what a little hard work can produce. Truth be told, I feel like I was the winner in that scenario. I
helped create a friendship that exists to this day. (Yep, they became pen pals and have met twice since our first trip to
Provence in 2006. Pretty cool, huh?)
I am proud that I was able to help my beekeepers connect in a way that may not have been otherwise available to them
without an interpreter. My hard work and hours of study had paid off in a tangible, terribly rewarding way. Because of my
desire to learn another language, and the fact that I love to help people, I bridged two parallel worlds that would have
otherwise never crossed… at least not to the depths that a shared language would have allowed.
Moral of the story: Follow your interests and your heart and you will never go wrong.
Do you have a story of helping people that has made you proud of your hard work? I know our Diary contributor Dalia has a
similar story. Find it here, on the Livemocha blog, Wednesday, June 27th.
Until then, keep tuning in for more stories, tips, and tricks. Coming up on Monday: Bilingual Readers; the story of a couple
creating a bilingual children’s book company in Spain.
The Conversation A blog from Livemocha
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