25 August 2003

My New Volunteer Position 

I’ve been here more 16 months, and still I haven’t found a program that shelters battered women.  Last week I asked a Paris friend about domestic violence and she directed me to SOS Femmes.  It took me awhile but I finally found a website for them (htt://www.sosfemmes.fr)

A few of the pages were in English so I sent them an email saying I would be happy to write some material on violence against women if they wanted more pages in English.

The SOS Femmes director’s return message asked me to “translate” a page on the website.  I laughed right out loud at the idea that I could translate anything in French, but she had kindly put a special link on the message she had sent to me so I could go directly to the “page” she wanted me to translate.

Being the adventurous sort I clicked on the special link and “viola!” I was right on the page she wanted translated.  What the director didn’t understand was that my ability to speak French is about the same as a two year old trying to speak English, only worse. 

But when I saw the title at the top of the page I know I turned white as a sheet.  It read “SOS Femmes Accueil (welcome) – Prostitution – Le Petite (little) Livret (book) Blue (blue).  The word “prostitution” needs no translation.

The next day when I saw Natalie, my French friend at the school playground I told her about SOS Femmes and the prostitution website.  Natalie is a very shy conservative kind of woman from Maurice (an island south of India). I knew that in her youth she wanted to be a nurse.  I also knew that she wanted to do some volunteer work that would help people.

I suggested that if she would help me translate the prostitution page I would give her driving lessons.  Natalie has never EVER driven a car before but she wants to learn so that she can take her youngest girl to a riding stable in a nearby town.

The next day we drove together to the forest and Natalie learned how to drive the car in first gear.  I have to confess that after her first attempt to use the brake almost put me through the windshield I was impressed with how quickly she figured out how to use the clutch and gas pedal to make the care go forward.

When she was tired of trying to remember the 8,000 things you have to do at the same time just to make the car go forward I drove us home to work on the translations.

Natalie’s role was to read the French and try to make it into English.  My role was to guess some of the English she was trying to say and then make easy to read, easy to understand sentences.

In our house we have seven French dictionaries and not a single one of them had most of the words that we needed.  Some of the words described fear.  Others tried to provide warnings like don’t carry a handbag with long straps because the handles can be used to strangle you.

At one point when I couldn’t remember the words for a particular parasite, and Natalie was at a loss for words I ran downstairs to Jay’s office to ask him for the word.  He was working on something at his computer, so I didn’t think he heard my question at first.  In a moment he looked up dead serious and said the name of the parasite.  He said, “What the heck are you and Natalie working on?”  Then he said, “Never mind.  I don’t think I want to know.”

That struck me so funny I couldn’t stop laughing. 

After a few hours of struggling with words, laughing to the point of tears (mostly out of embarrassment), and then realizing that what we were translating might actually save a woman’s life we got really serious about finishing the translation.