In the Thick of it Now

The weather has cooled off a bit, back down into the 80's, and I found my rain jacket in my tightly packed bags, Hallelujah! So Santa Cruz is looking better all the time. Especially from this view through my new living room windows into the flower-filled garden of the house I moved into today!

This week I attended a conference at the veterinary school I'm starting to work with put on by the US Humane Society's RAVS program. A team of five ladies and one lonely guy ventured from all across the States to train and encourage the Bolivian vets and students to spay and neuter dogs and cats. Right up my alley!

It was great to get to meet and work along side some of the Bolivian professors and students. One of the senior students told me how difficult it was not to be able to understand or talk to the three US vets who didn't speak much Spanish. I told her she could take my English for Veterinarians class this year and then she could to talk to them next year if they come back as they hope. Slightly unrealistic goal for my class I'm afraid, but she was excited nonetheless and wanted to know all the details.

Because there were many linguistically-frustrated vets, and I found that there wasn't much for me to learn or contribute otherwise, I was recruited as a translator.

My English was definitely better than the Bolivians, and maybe my Spanish was better than the gringas I was interpreting for, but that did not make me a qualified translator by any means. There was the expected problem of communicating effectively and rapidly between both languages, the specific surgical and anatomical vocabulary I was lacking, my brain not being used to switching back and forth and sometimes forgetting to translate when there was something interesting going on, but worst of all was the problem of never having been so close to spays and neuters without sterile gloves on! I was constantly tempted to point to or touch the things I was trying to describe, and often eager to dab some blood or rush to the rescue of a neglected vessel. However, that we're aware of, there have not been any fatalities or even close calls due to my major blunders. So, it looks like it was a good learning experience all around.