Oh, Echo, this clinic- it is basically made of madness. It's a twice a month volunteer clinic in the "International District" that basically serves undocumented Spanish speakers. Most of the student volunteers speak Spanish, but almost none of our volunteer docs or dentists do. On the day I showed up, I was the only student volunteer, and the only bilingual person in the building. (Can you see where this is going?) I had signed on for four of the eight hours the clinic was open for, but we ended up with a bit of a backlog, what with a complete bottleneck at me.
I honestly felt like a cartoon character. Like, had you photographed me, I would have had a little tornado surrounding me.
Around two (when I was supposed to leave) they had tracked down another translator, but I totally couldn't leave someone else alone to fend with the ravening hordes, so I stayed. I am actually pretty impressed that we were only three hours off by the end- we just started flying though patients like there was no tomorrow.
I worked there again over the break, and it was totally mellow. Less patients, more translators. I never would have suspected it was the same place.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-11-29 10:17 pm (UTC)I honestly felt like a cartoon character. Like, had you photographed me, I would have had a little tornado surrounding me.
Around two (when I was supposed to leave) they had tracked down another translator, but I totally couldn't leave someone else alone to fend with the ravening hordes, so I stayed. I am actually pretty impressed that we were only three hours off by the end- we just started flying though patients like there was no tomorrow.
I worked there again over the break, and it was totally mellow. Less patients, more translators. I never would have suspected it was the same place.