A brigade of nursing students has come to Ecuador to do health and sanitation education, deparatization and nurse education as well as helping out in various hospitals. I was lucky enough to send an email to the right person at the right time and we were brought in. Becca has been helping the nursing students with vitals and deparatization, and somehow my spanish was deemed good enough to be a translator. The other 4 translators are completely fluent in both languages, I feel a little more than overwhelmed at times.
Translating has been an amazing experience and I have learned a lot. It is much harder than I thought it would be, and every day I have had a pretty massive headache. The first day we went to an indigenous community miles into the jungle (3 hours by bus). There people had walked from all around to get parasite medication and hear our water sanitation and health talks. Unfortunately not many spoke Spanish, most spoke the indigenous language, Quechua. So every talk was translated twice. We taught in the schoolhouse, which was outside with dirt floors and few chairs. Their world map was faded and missing more than half. In fact it only had north and south america. There was no running water or electricity and everyone bathed, washed their hands and then got their water from the river near the town. It was an eye-opening experience.
Yesterday we went to the fair and did some talks as well as deparatization. In the afternoon we headed to a nursing home and did patient assessments on the patients. Most had no idea how old they were or where they were born. As far as translating goes, it has been an experience. At the fair there was one talk that was translated 3 times (english-spanish-quechua-guau). The foundation has been so great to give me the experience, but I have made a few major translation errors. The most memorable was when I told everyone that an alternative to boiling water was to put 4 little cats in one liter of water. I was supposed to say 4 drops of chlorine (gotitas de chloro) and instead said gatitos. I got a few questions after that. I am almost afraid to ask what else I´ve butchered, but most people are coming for the meds, hearing the gringa talk is added entertainment.