I’m intrigued by translators.

Honestly, can you imagine being the person who translates from one language into another on national TV with the world watching? Wonder if you incorrectly translate the words and start a war?

I feel for translators because I’ve served as a translator.

Once.

I had traveled from Greece to Moscow, to meet with a group of American women touring Russia. This particular day, I escorted Lucinda, one of the visitors, to a Russian Bible study where I would act as her translator.

“Acting” being a very accurate description of my translating talents.

As I walked through the door of the apartment, I knew I was in trouble. My sensitive nose alerted me to the presence of at least one cat, possible multiples. I frantically dug through my purse for my emergency stash of allergy pills and popped one in my mouth. No water, no tea, just shoved it down my throat.

Our hosts led us to the place of honor in the packed room, a large overstuffed couch. Pushing aside a yellow striped cat, I sat down and dumped Tigger on Lucinda’s lap, with the whispered explanation that I was allergic.

As I sat down, the cat-box odor became stronger. An unidentifiable noise, a muffled rustle, and occasional squeak caught my ear. Surreptitiously glancing around, my eyes widened as I spotted a large cage sitting on the end table next to me. To my horror, guinea pigs filled the cage. Cats bothered my allergies, but guinea pigs annihilated them.

I couldn’t even see the bottom of the cage, just a roiling mass of fur that squeaked. Or “wheeked” to use the official word for guinea pig speak. (Yes, if you sang Old McDonald about a guinea pig – it would be “with a wheek, wheek, here and a wheek, wheek there!”)

I desperately snagged another allergy pill and stuffed it down my throat, hoping to delay anaphylactic shock. My nose began running like a faucet, my eyes itched, and tears streamed down my face. My voice suddenly took on a much deeper timbre, a cross between Sam Elliot and a 3-pack a day chain smoker. Just not as sexy as Sam Elliot’s voice.

We enjoyed a wonderful time studying scripture and sharing. Our Russian hosts kept looking at me and whispering among themselves. I overheard one of them say, “Look at her face and her tears. She is so moved to be back in Russia again.”

Yes, I was moved. Moved enough to sit on Tigger who insisted on jumping back in my seat every time we stood to pray. So moved, I began speaking in an unknown language – Wheek. Unfortunately, no guinea pigs volunteered to translate the wheeks emanating from my mouth and nose.

Our hosts asked Lucinda to pray the closing prayer. I had warned Lucinda that my translating skills were minimal, so she decided to make it easier on me and pray scripture. Unfortunately, she didn’t pray John 3:16 or Psalm 23, both of which I had memorized in Russian. No, she chose a very obscure passage from Isaiah.

As she began praying about rippling rivers, weeping willow trees, and leaping animals on mountainsides, I knew I was in trouble.

Fortunately  Unfortunately, in the middle of my translation about rippling animals leaping into weeping rivers and eating birch trees on mountains, my phone began ringing.

Blaring the theme song to “Cheers.”

I sprinted around the circle towards the offending phone, continuing to translate in my Darth Vaderesque voice while using a soggy Kleenex to sop up the various fluids gushing from my eyes and nose. I cringed as the song lyrics played:

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name,

And they’re always glad you came.

You wanna be where you can see,

Our troubles are all the same

You wanna be where everybody knows

Your name.

As I silenced the phone, I lifted up a silent prayer that God would let everyone in the room forget my name.

Several hours and three allergy pills later, I was finally able to breathe without “wheeking.”

Thus ended my career as a translator.

 

 

Though I’m quite fluent in “Wheek.”