Shifting gears (5/31/02)

I went back to the business of interpreting yesterday morning, at the jail in Ogden. It has not been as difficult as I expected, given the fact that for the preceding two weeks I had spent so much time speaking and hearing Italian. But it will take me a few days to really get back into the routine of things. Yesterday I greeted another interpreter with "Buongiorno," but that was unintentional; I had actually started thinking in Italian by the time we came home. On several occasions yesterday I also found myself absent-mindedly saying "Va bene," an expression I used constantly in Italy. Fortunately for the criminal justice system, however, I made no such slip-ups in my interpreting. At least, I don't think I did.

Since coming back, I have had a couple of experiences that might be worth telling you about. You perhaps noticed that Rosa Oakes was on the list of recipients of the mass e-mails I have been sending. She is the interpreter coordinator for the Third District Court, and has treated me extremely well as I have been adjusting to my new profession. We learned the other night that while we were gone, Rosa had called Sheila's sister Sue, who was taking care of our kids, to tell her how much she and all the interpreters had enjoyed my e-mails. Sue does not have the Internet, and asked Rosa if she could make copies of all of them for her benefit. Sue then ended up going to the Matheson Courthouse to pick them up, and I'm sure Rosa was really good to her. Rosa is in Mexico now, and the interpreters have received none of the e-mails since the seventh one I sent. One of them has asked me to forward to her all the later ones.

When I came to the courthouse yesterday afternoon, one of the other interpreters came up and threw her arms around me, and said she wanted me just to go away -- to go back to Italy and continue sending her the e-mails she had enjoyed so much. She told me later that the one about Sabrina had made her cry.

Love,

Garry