A way with words…

As people born into the English speaking world, most of us do not know what it is like to have to search faces for clues, infer intentions from expressions, and make haphazard guesses at what people are saying based on their body language and tone of voice.

As Irish people, we are free to travel the world, confidently assured, that wherever we go, we will not be lost for a language to communicate with most of the people we meet.

However, this is a luxury which is not equally-afforded to all people.

While the Irishman who visits Lithuania can trust that some Lithuanians will speak English, the same cannot be said when the routes of migration are reversed.

This week, we spoke with Nadia Smaidre – she is a Lithuanian interpreter who has been living in Omagh since 2006.

Through her work, Nadia has served as a communicative life-line during some of the best and worst moments of people’s lives. She has translated news of sickness and recovery, freedom and incarceration, of life – and of death.

The mother-of-two grew up speaking Russian at home, before learning some English, and becoming fluent in Lithuanian at school.

Nadia has been an interpreter since 2009, and she now works as a support worker with local refugee charity, ERANO, where she provides day-to-day help for people in our community whose lack of English would, otherwise, make some of the simple, essential tasks of normal life all but impossible.

FROM LITHUANIA TO IRELAND

“Since school, I enjoyed the excitement and pressure of organising things,” said Nadia.

In school, this manifested in Nadia involving herself in just about every conceivable aspect of extracurricular life.

“I was events organiser, school president, I was on the committee, and about every single other after-school club you could have put me in,” she said, taking a deep, list-fuelling inhalation.

“I was singing; I was dancing; I was acting; I was part of the student council… Anywhere at all.”

But, as much as Nadia enjoyed flirting with the arts and music, what she was completely compelled by was the energy… the people.

You might guess from Nadia’s relentlessly-social instinct that she might have always been intent on flying the coup; spreading her wings and migrating to some far off land.

This, however, turns out not to be the case.

“Ireland was not part of the plan at all – I wanted go to university and become an architect in Lithuania.”

But family circumstances made this impossible.

“After A-Levels, my boyfriend and I decided to come here for one year: We would save money, then go back to study, and rejoin our friends. That didn’t pan out either,” laughed Nadia.

After landing, Nadia first found a bed in Newstownstewart, and a job in Omagh.

She first worked as a cleaner in Daly’s Service Station, where, interacting with staff and customers, Nadia’s English improved dramatically.

“Six days a week, my freind dropped me off at six o’clock, then I’d get the bus back to Newtownstewart.

“Six months later, I started working days in South West College (SWC), and night in Vanilla.

“After six months, we realised we would only had enough money for one year of university…”

In short, the blueprint that informed Nadia’s move to Ireland had been misdrawn. But, sometimes, serendipity needs the spark of a mistake.

“In Vanilla, one of the chefs mentioned a course called ‘event management’… I heard this and my eyes lit up.

“‘I don’t want to go back anymore’, I said, ‘I am here to stay!’

“I started studying event management, and then, in my second year, I started studying to be become an interpreter as well.”

NADIA THE INTERPRETER

“I did my interpreting exams in London,” said Nadia. “After I graduated the events course in SWC, I went straight into interpreting.”

Nadia worked with two organisations: NICEM and the NHS.

“NICEM was all law and law enforcement in the North: Solicitors, barristers, courts, police stations…

“I worked freelance. They let me know where and when there was an appointment, and I’d meet the client there.”

Nadia’s work made her third-party to episodes of people’s lives that were otherwise entirely confidential. With a practiced neutral expression on her face, she bore witness to some of the most important moments of stranger’s lives.

“It taught me a lot,” said Nadia. “I had my experience coming here, but I saw a lot of other people’s, too. I saw people struggle with an absolute language barrier, which, because I arrived with basic English, I didn’t have to contend with.

“After breaking my leg on holiday in Spain, I came to better understand the fear that my clients were experiencing – that dreadful feeling, when there are six people standing around you talking, and you know that they are talking about you, but you have no clue what they are saying. Until that moment, I couldn’t really grasp what my clients were experiencing.

“Out of all my jobs, interpreting was my favourite: It was the most meaningful. You never had the same day twice. You never knew what was going to happen from one day to the next.

“With just a phone call, you could end up in situations that you never could have imagined.”

THE DAY HE NEARLY JUMPED

“One day, a gentleman managed to get on the roof of a very tall building, and I had to talk him back.”

Nadia had been called to do a routine job, when, all of a sudden, a policeman entered the scene, and said, “Speak Lithuanian?”

Before Nadia had the chance to nod a second time, she had been pulled from where she stood, and thrust into the centre of a life-or-death negotiation.

“He turned me so that I was facing the other way from the person on the roof. You don’t look, you just speak. This is so that he doesn’t misread your body language or some other queue.

“The properly-trained negotiator spoke to me; I interpreted, and, thankfully, the worst did not come to pass.”

“In an interpreting scenario, there are usually two people, and then there is me,” explained Nadia.

“I don’t look at either of you. I stare at the table, or I look somewhere else, because the two of you have to have the connection, not me.

“If I am available for eye contact, people will automatically look for it. But that’s not why I am there. I am just a voice.

“We were trained that ‘you are just a recording’.”

But, as well as ensuring an interpreter does not become an obtrusive presence, avoiding eye contact also helps them protect themselves.

“It takes time, it takes practice, it takes training, but it makes it easier for you to detach.

“Because, the fact is, in some situations it is very hard to switch off the human bit in yourself.

“It was difficult not to bring work home at the beginning. Hospital settings are the most difficult because people didn’t choose to get ill, and you are the one who has to break the bad news.

“You are the one who has to say the life support has to be switched off, or that there is no heartbeat anymore, or that the test results are actually worse than we thought. You’re the one,” said Nadia solemnly.

“Over the years, you find ways to protect yourself. It was another interpreter who told me to pick a spot on the table.

“Work has been hard at times, but endlessly rewarding. I’ve been fortunate since I moved here to have been surrounded by brilliant, curious, inquisitive, and, all importantly, local people. I was forced to come out of my shell; to talk and learn and listen.

“That helped a lot.”