Each month, we'll highlight someone involved in Nurses En Route - people we couldn't live without! February's "Keeping Tabs" voice is a young man from Mozambique named Dicla (pronounced Dee-clawsh). He wrote and shared with me recently the piece below about his experiences as an interpreter in Nampula, Mozambique with the Nurses En Route crew in October 2019. His words and picture (Dicla is on the left) are posted with permission. We are eternally grateful to this wonderful soul!
First of all I have to start by saying how I knew the Nurses En Route crew. I was at Sunday service that morning and a friend of mine "Bleina" asked if I was able to do part-time, working as a translator in a nurse training, well it sound good to me, and I accepted the challenge, I considered challenge because was something new to me and I had never done this before until that day.
Secondly, work with Nurses En route was a wonderful experience to me:
the way they taught, the patience they had, to repeat the same exercise a thousand times and always showing love, the way they got involved with every single person in the class was something unexplained and amazing to see and unforgettable moments to never lose in my memories.
Thirdly, the way they turned and appreciate our culture in a very short time was something that I must highlight. In our journey together, it could seem to be insignificant but the result that our team achieved, was extremely connected with how deep they could be involved in a different culture so as to make all classes comfortable during the lessons and the more comfortable they felt the easier they learned.
This is how our culture works the more the teacher get involved the better the expected result, and you guys smash it, you did a great job, naturally you discovered a very important key to working with our culture *commitment and involvement.*
If I had an opportunity to do it again I would do over and over until I get older, because being in such team is magic. It was a honor to me to work with Nurses En route crew because I know that we saved a lot of babies and it will be a honor forever because the babies we saved will save others.
To Save a life is like a seed, you save one and that one gives you plenty of them.
For all Nurses En route team, I love you all,
Dicla Serafim Aurélio Chirrime (geologist)