Well my six month temp job is complete! As you may have read in earlier Blog entries, I went to Kandern, Germany last April to train to substitute for a financial guy in the area of “Project Funding”, that is, bookkeeping and sending wires and other financial transfers to several countries In Eurasia. I was treated kindly by all, unlike the experience of the temp worker in the “Garfield” cartoon shown above, but at times I did feel I was not functioning on the same high level the regular worker, who was on furlough. I hope he received some relief from those duties. This is what we try to do as WA volunteers in support of translation. We come along side career workers and help as we can. I can’t say Excel spreadsheets are particularly exciting but it was very interesting to get a glimpse of the financial side of this important work. In addition I have had contact with many varied and interesting workers spread thorough a wide geographic region.
Beryl and I are going to Germany to the conference of this group of translators as part of the Kid Zone children’s program team from WA. This is the same sort of program she did last April in Cameroon. I know she will enjoy seeing a new country and I will enjoy seeing again those I met in Kandern and finally meeting in person those I interacted with by email and Skype during the past six months. After that we will travel to Aix en Provence, France, where friends from our time in Spain live. They head another geographic group and have an archiving project for us to work. So the fun continues!
In the photo on the right I am training
in Kandern, Germany in April 2011. The
regular financial guy at the computer. He is
smiling because he hoped to not have to view
spreadsheets for six months. As it happened
he retained some difficult aspects of his
work so he did not get the full vacation he
deserved.
