Part two, the first morning

The first morning there were five of us which I imagine looked faintly ridiculous as there were only three interpretees, but seeing as we were all new at this we found comfort in the support. Most of the vocabulary was understandable and we were able to give decent translations but it was soon clear that there was something that we had not taken into account . . . the dreaded acronym. Yes you read it right, the acronyms that were spouting from various people’s mouths were coming at an alarming rate and we had no idea what any of them meant. Terms like PAD, RP, WASH, HH and many more were being used. All we could do was translate around the acronyms and just say the letters in French which was often met by completely baffled look as obviously the acronyms were not the same in English. Desperate looks passed between us all but we powered through. Soon a break was announced and we were momentarily released from our duty as half the conference went out to smoke. Luckily Basile stayed behind to ask us how it had gone. The looks of desperation in our eyes must have given him a clue that something was not right and we explained about the acronyms whilst apologizing for the fact that we had no idea what they meant. Basile laughed and calmly explained what each one was saying that it hadn’t occurred to them that we wouldn’t know their meaning as they were used all the time in the NGO world, he ended up apologizing to us. After the break, five much calmer interpreters rejoined the table and the second half of the morning got under way. The topic was the intranet, specifically the forum, which needed revising and above all needed the participation of more people within the company. They had been talking about this for roughly ten minutes and we in turn had been interpreting. Everyone seemed to understand and this was confirmed by the nodding that was happening around the table. Five more minutes pass and then Eh leans forward and asks me “what’s a forum?”.

To be continued . . .