Translation....

For obvious reasons, quite often we need translation services. This could be for health promotion booklets or instructional guidelines needing to be translated from English into Arabic or vice versa. Every so often we need some pretty high level translation work done; an official document or survey work needs to be exact and can not have careless errors.... other times we just grab a goat herder to do the translation work. One instance of this was a training we did in South Kordofan - The main advertisement was translated from Arabic into English and noted on it were incentives people would receive for attending. This included 'pens', 'markers' and 'boobs'!! Yes, boobs!!!... we're convinced that should have said 'books'. Needless to say we had a much higher male participant turn out then expected. Right now we have a massive M&E (Monitoring and Evaluation) survey happening in our West Darfur program. It's basically a way to tell if we're doing a good job or not.... much more than just ticking boxes on a log frame. I've been running point on getting all sorts of surveys translated from English into Arabic at the University of Khartoum. The translator (Thabit) is a well educated Sudanese man, studied briefly in London and now works as a professor and translator for the University. It's great going to see him as we always dive into interesting conversations about language, it's origins and impact.... You know me, Mr high level chit chatter..... haha!!! Actually, each time I have gone there has always been an interesting cast of characters in his office. One look at them and you think they were just pulled off the streets, but they turn out to be these intellectuals who are fascinating to talk to. (Note: Don't judge a book by it's cover.... or don't judge a dude by how few teeth he has!) So last week he invites me to come to his lecture this week and dialogue with some of his students, so they can experience a true native English speaker. That lecture happened earlier today. Turns out... 'dialogue' and 'few' really meant over 100 students who have prepared English compositions they will recite to me and I need to comment on and offer feedback. Thankfully it was only a half dozen who spoke. What an amazing experience. I was blown away at how much I enjoyed helping these students out.... encouraging, offering pronunciation advice etc.. I really wished I could have stayed the rest of the day. It was like for that 1 1/2 hour I felt like an English expert. The looks on their faces, the questions they asked. How rewarding for a teacher to have students so engaged, so interested. I'll definitely be going back to offer more of my expert english advice. lol.... Man.... what a cool experience... nice surprise!