Archive for February 12, 2008
A global family reunion
CFCA’s work in India includes some exciting programs to make small loans to the mothers of sponsored children so that they can start or expand small businesses. Two CFCA project coordinators from Latin America are here to learn about these programs to see how they might be successfully adapted to their home countries. The two project coordinators are Eufronia Taquichiri from CFCA’s project in Cochabamba, Bolivia and Manuel Pineda from CFCA’s project in Santa Barbara, Honduras. Neither of them speaks English, so I am here to help with translation.
Most CFCA project staff members in India speak English, but many of the parents of sponsored children do not. We are interviewing mothers of sponsored children who participate in these programs, so we are frequently confronted with the challenge of double translation. Eufronia and Manuel ask a question; I translate their question into English; and a local CFCA staff member translates the question from English to Tamil or Telegu (the local languages where in the regions of India we are visiting). The mother’s response goes the same way. Tamil or Telegu translated to English, and English translated to Spanish. It’s a slow process, and it takes a lot of patience on all sides. We laugh at ourselves a lot, and that helps.
Manuel and Eufronia are here to learn, so they ask questions all day long (and usually far into the night). It has been very satisfying to see how a shared sense of purpose can overcome two language barriers. The sponsored mothers say they welcome Manuel and Eufronia as a fellow brother and sister in the global CFCA family. Manuel and Eufronia say that they have never been on a training trip that felt so much like a family reunion.
We’ll be here a few more days, the distance from our spouses and children made easier by the feeling that we are part of a family that is experiencing the adventure of teaching and learning from each other.
