Latest / Found in Interpretation Podcast / Ep. 42 - Carmen Figueroa Sotelo, Adventures of a Nomad Interpreter

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Ep. 42 - Carmen Figueroa Sotelo, Adventures of a Nomad Interpreter · Found in Interpretation Podcast

0:00
Hello, hello and welcome to another episode of found in
0:03
Interpretation podcast. Once again, I'm one of your Co
0:06
hosts Alamogordo and I'm here with Brian.
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Brian, how you? Doing I'm doing great.
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I'm doing really great, especially since we're here with
0:12
my good friend Carmen and we're ready for another episode.
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All right, so everyone don't forget, like, share, subscribe
0:20
and let's kick it. Alright, we're here with Carmen.
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Carmen is a conference interpreter, English, French and
0:41
Spanish. She is based in Montreal.
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She has over 25 years experience and she does interpretation for
0:50
Radio Canada, especially the French network.
0:54
So it's called a DE for those of you who don't know, who may not
0:59
be Canadian. So people don't.
1:02
Exactly. And we get to hear her voice
1:07
during press conferences and among other things.
1:10
Am I right? Yes.
1:13
How did you how did you get there?
1:16
How did I get to specifically Canada?
1:19
CBC. Well, maybe we can take a few
1:21
steps back. And how did you become an
1:23
interpreter actually? How did I become an interpreter?
1:25
Well, actually, I sometimes like to say that I think I've told
1:30
this story before, but I sometimes like to say that I
1:32
became an interpreter when my grandmother moved to Quebec from
1:37
Chile because my entire family comes from Chile.
1:40
And my grandmother arrived at 60 some years of age, lived with us
1:45
and didn't speak any French. And at the time in Quebec City,
1:49
there weren't that many foreigners around, you know, And
1:52
we used to go to the grocery store.
1:53
And my grandmother was a very petite woman, but she had so
1:57
much personality and she wasn't scared and she wasn't scared of
2:00
ridicule, which is not the case of a four or five year old
2:03
child. So she would, you know, once
2:04
again, she started cackling like a chicken.
2:06
She pretended that she lay eggs if she wanted to buy eggs.
2:10
And I was so embarrassed that I quickly learned to anticipate
2:14
her needs and be able to save them for her.
2:16
You know what do you want Grandma Know would say it that
2:18
way people wouldn't turn around in the grocery store.
2:20
I want to say, did you have an acting brag background?
2:24
She didn't, but I like to say that this is what started me in
2:28
interpretation. And then I didn't do it for, you
2:29
know, many years, but so I started.
2:33
And then, yeah. And then after that you actually
2:36
started professionally more or less a few years before me, I
2:39
think. Yeah, actually The funny thing
2:41
is I was always interested in interpretation, but at the time
2:45
that I was a student, you couldn't study interpretation
2:48
without doing translation first. For four years.
2:50
I went to Ottawa U and translation just wasn't really
2:55
for me. It makes me, it creates a lot of
2:57
anxiety actually. I I get really bogged down in
3:00
the details of punctuation and things.
3:02
And so I dropped out of translation and then I went into
3:06
journalism. So I actually, I finished in
3:08
journalism but never worked as a journalist and I wanted to be a
3:12
foreign correspondent and never did it.
3:15
And and then I was working as a tour guide and that's when I
3:23
started interpreting again because I worked as a tour guide
3:26
for people who did speak the language of the country we were
3:28
visiting. So that's how my interest got
3:32
reinitiated. But what countries were you?
3:36
Well, countries, yeah, just two. Canada and the US work mainly
3:40
with people from either France or Spain.
3:42
Oh nice. Yeah.
3:44
So you you base you were basically able to combine your
3:49
love for journalism, translation and tour guide and those three
3:55
combined equal interpretation. I like communication and
4:01
traveling, so yeah, that that would be the common link between
4:03
all of that. I think it's the common link
4:06
between most interpreters. Yeah, yes.
4:09
And that was kind of how we met too, because like we traveled so
4:13
much together for many, many years until COVID hit.
4:17
And then you had a really interesting job during COVID
4:22
with LTE. So do you want to talk a bit
4:24
about that? Sure.
4:26
It's actually not with add the although it was thanks to LDE.
4:30
There is a a full time simultaneous interpreter who
4:34
does RDI from 9:00 to 5:00 Monday to Friday or a good
4:36
colleague, John Bisping. He's an amazing interpreter.
4:39
You should definitely invite him.
4:41
He's a really, really fun, interesting guy.
4:44
And but of course, he only does 9:00 to 5:00 Monday to Friday.
4:47
So whenever RDI needs other interpreters, I was on that
4:50
short list of interpreters that they hired.
4:52
So I mainly worked in the evenings or the weekends or
4:55
whenever Jean needed a day off or for whatever reason couldn't
4:58
make it, he was sicker or whatever.
5:01
And so the Hadoop Canada building and CBC building,
5:05
they're in the same building in Montreal.
5:07
And when COVID hit, well, I don't need to tell you this, but
5:11
we all lost all of our contracts and ahead of very full schedule,
5:16
mainly out of town, and that disappeared entirely.
5:19
And the person who gives me the Hazuka Nada contract said, hey,
5:23
um, I've been called, but they would want you to work at CBC.
5:27
And I'm like CBC. Oh, and I didn't quite
5:30
understand it at the time because I didn't know that
5:32
there's a CBC Morial who specifically caters to English
5:38
speaking Quebecers. And this made me really nervous
5:41
because I'm not used to going towards English when I work for
5:45
the television network. And I thought, OK, no, but I'll
5:49
do it. And it was a challenge.
5:51
I was excited about it. And I thought, well, nobody that
5:55
I know will listen because my English speaking friends don't
5:58
leave in Quebec. So they're not going to listen
6:00
to, you know, the the press conferences given by the Quebec
6:04
government. And my Quebec friends speak
6:05
French, so they're not gonna listen to the English either.
6:09
That's what I thought when I started.
6:11
So I went in on the first day and I could tell that everybody
6:14
was really nervous and I was really on edge because nobody
6:17
had anything better to do than watch the conferences at the
6:20
time. And I really wanted to do a good
6:22
job and, and apparently they like me.
6:25
So they called me back and it was seven days a week and they
6:29
called me back for next day and then they booked before whole
6:31
week. And then they eventually just
6:33
said, hey, can you just keep coming until, until there's no
6:36
need for it anymore? So I ended up doing that for a
6:38
few months. You were the the English voice
6:42
of the news in Quebec for a long time.
6:45
Well, whereas we were all scrambling to see what we're
6:47
going to do because all of our contracts were cancelled.
6:51
Very thankful for it. And it wasn't the only one
6:54
actually in the building because there's also Hazuki Canada,
6:57
Manitoba for example, that caters to the French community
7:00
of Manitoba. And so there were a lot of other
7:02
interpreters doing the other press conferences for the other
7:05
provinces as well. So it wasn't just me.
7:08
And, and of course on this being was still working for RDI.
7:12
So there was actually a community of interpreters there,
7:14
although we had to say hello from very far away.
7:17
And yeah. Yeah.
7:19
Do you recognize them now that they're not wearing masks or?
7:23
Yes. Did you, did you think at that
7:28
time that your interpretation had to be slightly different?
7:32
For instance, you thought, oh, I have.
7:34
I need to have a reassuring voice in order to calm everybody
7:39
down. Or there was no room in my mind
7:43
for that at all. And I've been told that I have a
7:46
calm voice. I did not feel calm, I can tell
7:49
you that. But there were so many other
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things that I was worried about, you know, being able to keep
7:54
keep up with the speed. And there's a particularly when
7:57
you work at the television network, that doesn't
7:58
necessarily exist in conference interpretation.
8:00
But you have to be as close to the speakers as possible because
8:05
otherwise on television it just doesn't fit.
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If you are speaking too far after the person who is
8:11
expressing themselves, you really have to keep on which
8:16
barely know they Kasha almost trying to anticipate what
8:18
they're saying, which is not something that in conference
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interpreting is as well accepted.
8:24
So I was a lot more worried about that and especially about
8:27
getting the right terms because our press conference in Quebec
8:31
came a couple of hours after the federal press conference and the
8:34
federal government kept talking about new programs and new ways
8:39
of of helping out the population.
8:41
But I had to look for the official way of saying it in the
8:44
other language. There always is, but since it
8:45
had just been data, sometimes it was more difficult to find, so I
8:49
was a lot more worried about that.
8:50
I was not worried about my voice at all, I just hoped that it
8:53
wasn't too annoying to listen to.
8:55
But for the rest, there was like no room in my mind for that
8:58
particular concern. And how did you deal with people
9:00
like, say, politicians that you were not keen on, let's say, to
9:06
put it politely? You know, I think that one of
9:10
the good things about our job is particularly when it comes to
9:14
those kinds of things, I mean, how often do we have to
9:16
translate things we don't necessarily agree with like
9:18
constantly. But once again, there's no,
9:20
there's no room in our minds for that at the time.
9:23
We're so concerned about making sure that the meaning gets
9:25
across and everything like that, that there's no room for the, I
9:30
don't like this person or I don't agree with this.
9:32
You know, later you'll think about it, sure, but at the time
9:36
you're just really concentrating on I have to do a good job here,
9:41
I want to render this as truly as possible.
9:45
Um, I remember the logo press conferences a lot.
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I think that in Quebec, at least Ontario must have been dog Ford,
9:53
but in Quebec it was all about logo and all of the, all of the
10:00
back and forth and the different decisions.
10:02
But one of the I don't know if it's a made-up quote, but over
10:07
time, sometimes when I'm laughing with my friends, the
10:11
joke is more like, hey, spell download that.
10:14
If he's, you know, like logo was very.
10:17
Sometimes I think that's when he was trying to comfort people.
10:23
He was kind of jolly and at the same time kind of try to sound
10:28
friendly and it. Did reassuring.
10:32
Yeah, reassuring. You know, with that kind of
10:34
Boniva sort of sort of voice, did you try to mimic that or did
10:40
you extremely keep it to the? Message.
10:43
I think I do mimic it, not necessarily because I want to.
10:48
Because. Really.
10:49
Well, I think I just, I, I'm, I've been told that I'm a more
10:54
emotional interpreter in that if somebody's emotional, I'm
10:57
emotional too. I try to render the emotion like
11:00
my, my voice never really stays flat.
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If somebody is whatever getting angry or is really happy, I tend
11:07
to like get on the same kind of wavelength that they're on.
11:12
And um, so without, once again, this was not a conscious
11:16
decision, but you try to render the tone as well as what they're
11:21
saying. Another thing about such a fast
11:24
pace press conference with three different voices is that's one
11:29
of the only ways for the people listening to the interpretation
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to be able to tell them apart if they're not actually watching.
11:35
So people watched on Facebook, but some people listened on the
11:37
radio. I don't have the time to say.
11:39
And now Logo speaks, and now, you know, Aruba speaks or now
11:42
whatever. So I think that when people can
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hear from your own tone of voice that the speaker has changed,
11:50
that the style of expressing themselves has changed.
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I think that this is helpful as well.
11:54
And but once again, this is not necessarily something that you
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consciously make a decision that you're going to do.
12:00
I think it's something that you naturally do because your job is
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to make sure that people understand and that is one of
12:06
the ways for them to understand. Cool, that's a very good tip.
12:10
Yeah, absolutely. You have to change your voice
12:12
because we do like for instance, union meetings or you know,
12:16
whatever and they there is a lot of back and forth between
12:19
speakers. So to change your tone or the
12:23
way you speak in order to create that illusion of dialogue is
12:29
actually a pretty cool thing. Yeah, I think so as well.
12:33
I would say that's one of the things that stands out in
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comparison to AI too. Like a I will be so far behind
12:39
because it has to do a speech translation of the English into
12:42
the other language or the French into the other language so that
12:46
it already takes that much time to do that.
12:48
Plus, it's a monotone voice throughout, so you're never
12:51
gonna, it's hard to keep up with the say, a round table or a, you
12:55
know, a group discussion, that kind of thing, like.
12:57
Yeah, especially when you throw accents into the whole thing as
13:01
well. Yeah, absolutely.
13:03
Did you do any English accents or no?
13:06
No, no, I didn't. If I did.
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If I did, I'm not aware of it. It wasn't.
13:12
It was subconsciously. Yes.
13:16
And how, how long did you, because you're in the beginning,
13:19
I sent you, I thought you said that you did it for a few, maybe
13:24
four months or something. So, but it lasted a lot longer
13:26
than that. No, it did, but the press
13:28
conferences didn't. At one point they realized.
13:30
And also there wasn't that much more like new things to say,
13:34
right? So at the beginning, the press
13:35
conference was on a daily basis. And then when they realized that
13:39
it was going to last more than two weeks, they started, you
13:42
know, cutting down to six times a week.
13:44
And even then people complained because this was the anchor.
13:46
And also people, this was like the rallying point, you know,
13:50
it's, it's what people were doing to try to make sense of,
13:54
of a situation that was really difficult to make sense of.
13:57
So at first it was seven days a week, and after a while it
14:01
became 7, and then it became 5 and then became 3.
14:05
And we were like four months into it, I think, at this stage.
14:09
And there were more and more conferences happening and
14:14
interpreters were starting to work again.
14:15
And after, I think six months, I think more or less, yeah.
14:19
I thought, OK, people are going to forget that I exist, are
14:21
going to think that I only work here, and this is eventually
14:24
going to disappear and I'm not going to have anything else.
14:27
So that's when I started asking to be replaced so that I could
14:30
say yes to other contracts so that I could.
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I mean, I needn't have worried now that we know how much work
14:37
there was because there was so much catching up to do.
14:39
But at the time, I was really concerned that I would fall off
14:42
people's radar and. Yeah, and then the virtual
14:46
interpretation kind of saved our butts.
14:48
Yes, it did. So then you went back on the
14:53
market, well, you know, because we started to work again.
14:58
Yes, yeah, we started to work again and we all had the growing
15:02
pains of getting used to conference interpretation and
15:06
having better bandwidth and and better equipment.
15:10
I think that, you know, for a while it was impossible to buy
15:12
good quality microphones anywhere just because there was
15:15
so much demand for it. But The funny thing is, I, I
15:20
told you that I had tried studying in translation and
15:23
realized it wasn't for me at one point.
15:25
This must have been about 10 years ago.
15:27
I wanted to be able to work remotely.
15:30
And I thought, hey, maybe I could try again with translation
15:32
and see whether, you know, this time around I could do it, and
15:35
then I could work and travel at the same time.
15:38
My goodness, I don't know how translators do it.
15:40
They have my entire admiration because I have done translation.
15:44
I used to work at the courthouse, and I did a lot of
15:46
the technical Ballistics reports, autopsy reports, bodily
15:52
fluid reports and those things. But those are really easy to
15:54
translate in that there's only one way of saying, well, the
15:57
spleen weighed 289 grams. You know, the stomach was filled
16:00
with whatever. I didn't know there was
16:02
translation of all of that. Yeah, yeah, depending on what
16:06
language the trial is is taking place, Right.
16:09
And so going from that to something that is actually
16:14
crafted to be more artistic, the way many written things are, I
16:20
would wake up at night because I wanted to like take a sentence
16:23
and separate it and chew. And then the next night I would
16:25
wake up and like put it back together with a comma.
16:28
And I'm like, I can't do this. I'm I'm too stressed out.
16:31
So for me, being able to do Zoom was like a dream come true in
16:36
that even though most things take place in person now,
16:39
there's still some work in Zoom which allows me to sometimes,
16:43
you know, not be necessarily at home, but to be elsewhere and
16:48
still be able to work. Well, I think that Brian and I
16:51
both did some translation before becoming interpreters.
16:54
And I think that, well, I think that interpreters that have a
16:59
background in translation, um, give a different performance
17:05
than those who have not studied translation, right.
17:10
I would think so. Yeah, I would agree with that
17:12
too. Yeah, because we build a lexicon
17:16
of things that aren't in your everyday life.
17:19
Like it's, it's one thing to be bilingual, it's another one to
17:21
specialize in a certain field. And when you're given that
17:24
opportunity with translation and you can take your time, even
17:28
though there are deadlines, you can still look for the little
17:31
monsters then like you can, you can really like change the
17:35
sentence around. And whereas if I think if you go
17:38
straight into interpretation, maybe you lose a bit of that.
17:42
Well, in my case, I think that translation was a way to Polish
17:48
my French and my English. Hmm.
17:50
It's one thing to grub. Bilingual or trilingual?
17:54
Carmen and I, we both share the three languages as we were
17:57
growing up. Oh, Brian as well, of course.
18:00
So we all of us, the three of us, actually.
18:02
Yeah. Sorry, Brian, I was giving you
18:04
out for a second looking a little bit too much.
18:08
On our my grandmother passed away a long, long time ago, so
18:10
you don't have to you know you don't have to she'll she'll
18:13
forgive you for sure from. Thank you.
18:15
Thank you, Gracias. But uh, yeah, I think that we
18:21
all grew up in multilingual environments and, but from, from
18:26
that step to become a professional interpreter, it's
18:31
some, it's something different. And I think that a background in
18:34
translation or having study translation at university is a
18:38
way for our it's a training for our mind.
18:41
It is, and I think that people who translate read a lot.
18:46
And I think to be a good interpreter and a good
18:49
translator, I'm sure, but, um, you have to read a lot.
18:53
And I think a lot of people neglect how important that is
18:57
because it's through reading that you learn the beauty of a
19:01
differently constructed sentence or the elegance of a new word.
19:05
And if you don't read, you can't, you know, expand on your
19:09
vocabulary and on the way that you say things and on the way
19:12
that you can render things and, and even simple things.
19:15
Like sometimes I listen to people on the radio.
19:17
And surprisingly enough, you know, in French, the liaison has
19:21
pretty much disappeared. And I think it's because people
19:23
don't read enough. And so they don't know what the
19:25
ending of a word is. And so they don't know what it
19:27
is all to do, you know, whether it's with a T or an S And this
19:31
thought came to me the other day and I'm like, yeah, we don't
19:33
read enough as a society. And it's so important to.
19:36
Yeah. And I remember, like, even when
19:38
with my kids, like growing up, I would read to them a story in
19:42
English and the same story in French.
19:44
But the French version was so much more polished.
19:47
And they just like, wow, I would not use that word as a four year
19:51
olds reading The Little Mermaid, you know, so.
19:56
Which is which is also really cool.
19:58
Yeah. So even at like, children's
19:59
books, I mean, you know, like, it starts there and it just
20:02
never stops, like. You know, your message is really
20:06
important because on top of that, um, we hear and it's
20:12
probably true that younger people don't read as much
20:18
because there's just more ways to entertain yourself nowadays.
20:24
Yes. But we have to keep, and I keep
20:28
pushing on my own children the, the, the, the necessity of
20:33
reading. But it's it's just sometimes an
20:37
uphill battle, I think. It is, but I think there's
20:41
always a way of finding something that people will find
20:43
interesting, you know, and books are different worlds, so you
20:49
just have to find the world that you want to visit.
20:52
Yeah, my, my son Keith, he's into video games.
20:55
So we did a lot of books that were like reality television
21:00
reality, virtual reality, like Ready Player 1, Ready Player 2
21:04
and all those kinds of books. He loved all of it.
21:07
So yeah, he's still, he's still quotes from like from the book.
21:11
So I'm, I'm excited that he, he was excited to read, you know.
21:16
Give me some tips, Brian. I know.
21:19
Well, you know I won't tell you about my 18 year old.
21:25
Yeah, my nieces, I have 3 nieces and my sister and brother-in-law
21:29
have done such an amazing job of always making sure that they are
21:33
surrounded by books. Like, to them, it's, it's such a
21:36
normal thing to always be surrounded by books that I
21:39
remember at one point I was working at a hotel, probably for
21:41
something for you Brian. And my niece came over and spent
21:45
at the evening with me and I took her to the pool downstairs.
21:47
And then she slept over at the hotel.
21:49
And the first thing she did when she came into the room was like,
21:51
wow, beautiful room. And then where are the books?
21:54
And I'm like, oh, yeah, where are the books?
21:57
So she opens up the drawers and finds the Bible.
22:01
It was the. Only book in the room.
22:03
She opens it up and this was before she could read, you know,
22:05
she was like 5 or something like that.
22:07
And then she's pretending to read and I take a picture and
22:09
send it to my sister. It's like you're reading a
22:12
mighty at the Bible shows she looking for books.
22:14
It was the only book available. So hey, I wanted to go back to
22:17
something that you said and I that I found really interesting
22:20
about you know, it's not because you speak two or three
22:21
languages. There's something that really
22:23
stuck with me when I started interpreting and I started at
22:26
the courthouse. As I was mentioning, when you
22:28
went into the, the the restroom for not, not, not the, not the
22:32
bathroom, but like the place where interpreters rested in
22:35
between contracts, there was a big sign that said thinking that
22:39
you can be a translator or interpreter because you speak 2
22:42
languages is like thinking you can be a pianist because you
22:44
have two hands. Oh, and I love that because it
22:50
really explains it. You have the basic tool, now you
22:54
have to work on it. Yeah.
22:55
Now you have to learn the whole thing with the basic tools that
22:58
are at your disposal. And that's all languages are.
23:01
They're basic tool. It doesn't mean you can do the
23:03
work. And I think that in a city like
23:05
Montreal, where I live, people don't value it.
23:08
They don't. So many people are bilingual or
23:11
trilingual, you know, nobody gets impressed until you speak
23:13
at least 5 languages. So they don't realize a.
23:16
Lot of them. Yeah, a lot of people don't
23:18
realize how difficult what we do actually is, and I think that's
23:23
one of the reasons that I like working in a place like where I
23:25
am now, which is a smaller town in the United States.
23:29
People really value what I do because they're impressed by it
23:33
and it's nice to work with those people as opposed to people who
23:38
all think that they can do their job better than I could, you
23:41
know, and you could do my job better than I could I.
23:43
Mean and a lot of the people that are there are come from
23:45
cities that are very homogeneous and in a way so that everyone
23:49
speaks English, everyone kind of looks and talks the same and
23:53
yeah. So it's a yeah, I could see how
23:56
like you would be more. Years.
23:59
Yeah. So you know exactly what I'm
24:01
talking. About I'll call you exotic.
24:03
I'll call me just different. Well, what you're saying, what
24:11
you're saying is so true. And I'll give an example.
24:13
We're raising at home our teenage boys, and they're
24:18
trilingual, and they think my job is easy.
24:22
They're like, oh, your job is so easy.
24:25
You just talk all day and you go from French to English, English
24:30
to French, and that's it. It's so simple because in their
24:32
mind they think that it's so easy to switch from one language
24:37
to another. And then I had one of them sit
24:43
next to me while I was doing one of my conferences a few weeks
24:46
ago. And then after, like, I don't
24:49
know, at the end of the day or something.
24:50
Of course he didn't listen the whole day, but he came to me and
24:53
says, ah, it's a lot harder than I thought, how do you do it?
24:57
It's so fast and I don't understand anything they're
24:59
saying and why yadda yadda yadda.
25:01
And I'm like, ah, finally I got the respect.
25:04
That I deserve True. Yes.
25:06
Yeah, yes. And you do deserve it, Yeah.
25:08
It was a great when during COVID we have like a double desk in
25:13
our office when next to the other so he was doing his
25:15
homework and schooling while I was doing interpretation on zoom
25:19
so he would always be like what the heck are you guys talking
25:22
about? I don't know either.
25:26
I don't understand either. Yeah, but he learned like not to
25:29
like talk or interrupt or anything.
25:30
Like just like I'm interpreting, you can't, it has to be silence.
25:34
And if you need to say anything, you pass notes.
25:37
So we're like little like we were like kids at school
25:39
passing. No, stay each other.
25:41
Like, much more civilized than cats.
25:43
Yeah, no kidding. But yeah, but that was just like
25:48
for you, you, I know how much you love to travel and and COVID
25:53
must have been so in a way debilitating because you're
25:57
like, you're not used. To staying well, it was.
26:00
Oh, I forgot to ask, so were you when you were working for the
26:04
you were on? Site I was on site.
26:06
Right, right. Right.
26:07
Sorry. OK.
26:07
And The funny thing is they made a video of me at one point
26:12
because, oh, and this is something they would tell me,
26:16
Oh, by the way, um, CTV is asking for your feed or whatever
26:21
CGD, which is a radio, a station is asking for your feet.
26:26
And like, I don't want to know. I don't want to know how many
26:28
people are listening to me. I don't want to know the
26:30
comments. I, I just, I go in there and in
26:33
my mind, my mother is listening to me and that's it.
26:36
And my mother was listening to me and she would say you did
26:38
well. They spoke quickly, you know,
26:39
and that comforted me to know that I was translating,
26:42
interpreting for her. But.
26:45
It's your mother. It's my mom, of course she's not
26:47
going to say I did a bad job, right?
26:48
So it was very comforting. I kind of needed the comfort at
26:51
the time. And also I ran to work so it was
26:55
3, 25K wasn't very far and um, it was kind of weird to take the
27:00
metro. At the time, I wasn't
27:01
comfortable taking the metro, so I would just jog to work and
27:05
then I would jog back. Um, but the problem with the
27:08
jogging is that I had to take my computer and I had to take my
27:13
coffee because the coffee machines were closed over there
27:15
and I had left a bag of clothes and things like that.
27:18
So I would just put on, you know, something warm in case
27:20
that I was wet because it's been raining or because whatever, it
27:23
was really hot. And if it's sweating, although
27:24
there wasn't case at the beginning and when they did the
27:27
video on me, they were so used to seeing me run in and out and
27:30
they had told me, listen, we don't see you.
27:32
So it's OK if you're sweaty, if you're disheveled or whatever,
27:34
as long as you do a good job. And I always showed up an hour
27:37
before. So I was never, you know, out of
27:39
breath or anything like that. The day they did the video, they
27:41
were waiting for me outside because they thought that I was
27:44
gonna come running, which I always did.
27:47
But the week before, I had been on a radio interview for CBC and
27:55
they took a picture of Maine disheveled, sweaty face wearing,
27:59
you know, workout clothes and they put it on Instagram and I'm
28:02
like, OK, I'm not doing that again.
28:04
So on that day, I decided to bike so that I could dress
28:08
properly, wear makeup and brush my hair and these.
28:11
And they like, we're waiting outside for me for half hour.
28:13
I felt so badly. I even offered we can do it
28:16
tomorrow. Like, I mean, I'll run in
28:17
tomorrow. And you keep.
28:18
They wanted to integrate that into the video.
28:21
And they're like, no, no, it's OK, it's done now, so.
28:26
Sorry, is it the picture where it says meet the interpreter
28:28
behind the voice from? Yeah, I have here.
28:33
It's it's. It's a it's a Shorty.
28:35
Yeah, it's a short blurb. It's a 3 minute video that
28:38
people I didn't know, as I was saying, people were asking to
28:41
know who I was. I think they were like
28:44
interested in all interpreters, especially the sign language
28:47
interpreters. So they said do you mind if we
28:48
just a short video? And I'm like sure, you know, so
28:51
did the short video and. And yeah, that people were
28:54
interested in that and. I love that you say that 3.5
28:58
kilometer run is just a quick run, very short run.
29:02
At the time, at the time I ran a lot more.
29:04
So I would like to run back and forth 7K and if that was a lot
29:08
less than my training for the day, like say that day I was
29:11
supposed to train whatever 1518 kilometers, I would subtract 7
29:15
and go and run like 10 or 11 kilometres.
29:17
Carmen's. And then do the seven back and
29:19
forth. You would run 18 kilometers a
29:22
day. Sometimes, depending on your
29:24
training for a marathon, Yeah, yeah.
29:27
Yeah, Carmen's a marathon runner.
29:29
So not anymore. Actually, I did one last year
29:31
and I thought, you know what? I'm gonna go to stick.
29:33
I'm gonna go with half marathons or a lot more.
29:35
Welcome to the club. Manageable.
29:37
Not running this month. But to go back to the travel
29:42
thing, The funny thing about COVID is that, yeah, I was
29:45
forced to stop traveling, as we all were.
29:49
But it also opened up a door because during COVID I learned
29:52
to drive for the first time in my life.
29:55
It's easy, nobody was on the road.
29:57
Yes, no. But you're right, this is, this
30:00
is how I managed to do it because I got used to people
30:02
getting back on the road little by little and, and, and that
30:07
opened up new doors for me that I didn't have before.
30:13
So I ended up buying myself a van, setting up a little work
30:18
corner in there. So every once in a while I
30:20
actually work from the vehicle. Yeah.
30:24
Yeah. So you you you became some sort
30:27
of nomad interpreter. Part time nomad.
30:31
Yeah, yeah. Part-time Nomad, Part-time
30:34
Montrealer, is that. Yeah, that's that's how.
30:37
So in the summer when there's not very much like right now,
30:41
that's why I'm not home. I'm on a semi road trip.
30:44
I work partly in person and then I go back to my vehicle and I
30:49
drive to another town. And then if I have a contract, I
30:52
make sure that I go into a place with really excellent Wi-Fi
30:55
connection and I do my contract there and then I keep going.
30:59
So. Could you could you could you
31:01
get a star link? I could get a star link, it
31:03
would allow me to go to more remote areas.
31:06
Right now I just make sure that I am in a place with excellent
31:09
Wi-Fi like I if I have a contract the next day, I always
31:12
make sure to choose a place the day before where I know that the
31:16
connection is going to be good. And so far I've had no problems,
31:19
thank goodness. But.
31:21
Yeah, I've seen this van. It's it's incredible.
31:23
It's got it's got like solar panels, a kitchen, a shower bed,
31:28
like it's really well wow, done. How did you did you buy use like
31:35
tell me what's the story behind the van?
31:37
You're interested in the. Yeah, yeah, I'm interested in
31:39
that. Gives me ideas for the future it
31:41
gives me. Ideas for the future?
31:42
Well, so going back, I had a driver's license that I got
31:49
through like the skin of my teeth a few years before.
31:51
That's what allowed me to practice during COVID because
31:53
you couldn't just, you know, rent a car and practice if you
31:55
didn't have a, a, a functioning, um, license plate or license
32:00
plate, like license. And I have a lot of friends who
32:04
have fans. I'll have a lot of friends who
32:05
like the outdoors, you know, the trail runners, climbers,
32:08
whatever. And so when life was a thing in
32:12
that group, before it became a thing in society at large, So it
32:16
was already something that I had dreamt of so much, but I was so
32:20
scared of driving that I thought it'll never be for me.
32:24
And then I learned to drive, greatly motivated by the fact
32:26
that there was no transportation left between Montreal and
32:29
Ottawa. My entire families in Ottawa, I
32:31
was alone in Montreal. And after COVID, I was.
32:33
Like we moved from Quebec City to Ottawa.
32:35
Yes, we all moved from Quebec City to Ottawa, and then I moved
32:37
to Montreal, but I'm the only one there and so I needed to see
32:41
my family and I come from a very close family and it had been
32:44
months since I've seen them. The border had been closed
32:46
between Quebec and Ontario, if you remember, and when they
32:48
opened it, there were no buses left, no trains, nothing.
32:52
So I thought I had to learn to drive.
32:54
So once I learned how to drive like, hey, maybe I could, you
32:58
know, I could do the van thing that I thought I was never going
33:01
to be able to do on my own. So I did, and it originally I
33:04
wanted to buy a used vehicle, but there were none available
33:07
because Amazon, apparently this is what I heard.
33:12
Amazon became so busy during COVID that they bought all the
33:16
big vans so that they could do deliveries.
33:19
So there was nothing left. So I was lucky to get the
33:22
vehicle from somebody who had the same project as I did, but
33:25
who did this from the project I designed how I wanted the
33:29
interior to be. I had it done and then I started
33:34
traveling around. And where did you go?
33:38
And in a lot of different places.
33:42
And I've been trying to combine it with in person things like
33:45
the contract that I'm doing here, which is a contract for
33:47
Brian. And it's really cool they fly me
33:49
in because it's such an isolated place that they fly you in all
33:52
the time, but they don't care where they fly me in from.
33:55
So the first year I tested something, I drove to Halifax,
33:59
left the van at the Halifax airport, flew here for a week,
34:03
flew back and then went to Newfoundland and Labrador and
34:06
came back. Last year I did the same thing.
34:09
I drove here with van and then I drove to Denver, left the van at
34:13
the Denver airport, came back for work, went back, visited
34:17
Utah, Arizona, came, went back to Denver, came back here, went
34:21
back and then drove myself back here because I had like 5 weeks
34:24
here over like a 2 1/2 month period.
34:27
And right now I'm in the middle of doing that as well.
34:28
So I was here 2 weeks ago and when I left I drove up to the
34:32
Great Lakes, went all the way around Lake Superior.
34:38
I was supposed to fly back from Palm Bay but my flight was
34:40
cancelled because of the strike with Air Canada.
34:44
And Brian saved my life by finding me a plane ticket in
34:47
Duluth in Minnesota. So he said just drive down
34:49
there, it's a few hours. I drove down there, left the
34:51
van, came back here for the week and I'm going back to Duluth and
34:54
then going through some of the national parks there through
34:58
Ontario, back home. So I'll be home in September
35:01
sometime. Do you keep a record or take
35:03
pictures or have a blog or something?
35:05
Or do you tell me it's so? Interesting pictures.
35:08
Such an interesting it's an interesting story, I.
35:10
Mean, I regret you asking the question of pictures.
35:13
I do have pictures I take a lot of.
35:15
Pictures, No. But to be honest with you, I
35:17
mean, we hear so many interpreters out there who are
35:20
saying, oh, I'm stuck at home and we're always at home and we
35:25
don't get to travel. But you took matters into your
35:28
own hands. You said, you know what, we can
35:32
work from everywhere, so might as well be everywhere.
35:37
Yes, and this is incredible. Really enjoying it.
35:40
I am living like a life that I really really.
35:45
And you do you. You do photo albums.
35:47
Like yearly photo albums of everything.
35:49
That you've done too, yeah. And I'm in some of those
35:51
pictures. From yes, of course you are.
35:53
I mean the number of contracts we've heard together.
35:55
Have a picture of of your son Keith on top of my van.
35:58
Oh. Yeah.
35:59
I don't think you went up. You were like, scared.
36:02
There you go. Yeah.
36:05
I have, I have a small, I like to call it a terrorist, but it's
36:08
not a terrorist. It's just like a bunch of, you
36:11
know? Rooftop.
36:12
It's a rooftop patio, but it doesn't have sides.
36:15
So when you're standing on the van, if you're at all scared of
36:18
heights, well, yeah, gonna fall over you.
36:22
I mean you can follow over. Anyway, has a solar panels
36:25
isn't. It it does, yeah.
36:26
But you can't step on those. From what I understand, you also
36:30
got some of the technology to be able to do yeah, interpretation
36:35
from a technician. Right.
36:36
So Global AV, which is a family owned business, they are the
36:43
ones that suggested things to me.
36:45
So I thank them so much for everything that I did to help me
36:50
of us and Mohammed Moussa, their two brothers.
36:54
And they suggested what equipment I buy an external
36:57
router with a SIM card that can change depending on the country
37:01
that I'm in with an antenna so that the so that the reception
37:05
is better. And, and I have a tribal, you
37:08
know, professional microphone, which is the same one that I'm
37:10
using today. And so I just, I really got set
37:14
up with professional grade stuff so that I could provide good
37:18
sound. And I even have like a, a
37:20
jackery, which is like an external battery that I plug my
37:24
router into because router actually makes a lot of noise
37:26
and clients could hear it. So I bought that or that I could
37:30
plug the router in that without having to plug it into my van
37:34
because when I plug it into the electrical system of my van, the
37:37
fan goes on to keep it cool and that also makes noise.
37:40
So you know, I, I worked out the kinks of the system and now I
37:44
have like excellent sound as long as I'm not next to a church
37:48
on my God. I was next to the church once
37:49
because it was in downtown and in a small town.
37:51
The reception was best. I finished my contract thank
37:54
goodness, 3 seconds after the bell started ringing and like if
37:58
that had happened during my contract I'm like never again.
38:03
Not a church and not a fire hall.
38:06
There's something I don't quite get.
38:08
You can do the interpretation from your van, but where do you
38:13
where do you get the Wi-Fi? Oh from your from from my
38:18
router. I have an external router that
38:20
I. Thought external router has to
38:21
connect to something. It does.
38:23
It connects to the antennas the way that.
38:26
You get you get some free Wi-Fi somewhere.
38:29
So let's say you park next to a Public Library.
38:31
Do you get the Wi-Fi from that Public Library and start
38:34
interpreting? No, the the Wi-Fi is provided by
38:36
the router. Don't ask me how it works.
38:39
You will have to ask Abbas or Mohammed.
38:42
They, they, they made it work. It works.
38:44
Coming in a few weeks, I'm found an interpretation.
38:47
Yeah, this is pleasure brought to you by a family owned AV
38:51
company called Global Avy. Started out the Muhammad Abbas.
38:54
They're great people I love. Them, no, I went there and I
38:56
drove there with the van. And I mean, they've, I've worked
38:58
with them for years. They've always had to give me
39:00
lifts everywhere because I didn't drive, you know, So the
39:04
fact that they saw me go into their studio with a huge vehicle
39:08
and they're like, Oh my God. So they visited it and they help
39:11
you with equipment. So.
39:12
Yeah. And you're gonna eat this.
39:13
Why are you going to eat that? And yeah, it was, it was great.
39:16
It was a lot of fun. So they're really, really
39:18
excited to help you with this project.
39:20
Yeah, they were super excited to help me with it, and they'll be
39:22
happy that I'm still using it. And then it's still like, yeah.
39:24
Enjoy. I bought a I bought a booth from
39:27
him before when we used to do equipment with my old company
39:31
and there that was a really cool booth.
39:33
It was all like with magnets instead of Velcro and like there
39:37
were 4 by 4 squares instead. Of solid.
39:40
Panels, it's so good. With the darkened windows so
39:44
that you don't feel like you're in aquarium, and the places
39:47
where you can hook your clothes instead of like to put them
39:49
under the table. Yeah, they think of everything.
39:51
Ohe yeah, absolutely. Wow, I'm I was just trying to
39:55
picture that that router that you were saying and that maybe
40:00
there's a SIM card in it. Maybe it gets the network from a
40:03
Bell or Telus or whatever. Yeah, I said yeah.
40:07
I said Wi-Fi. Maybe it's not Wi-Fi.
40:08
Maybe it's like 5G or something, you know, But it's, yeah, but
40:12
it's separate from my phone. I always, I also always have my
40:16
phone as a backup just in case, you know.
40:18
But as I said, so far I've been lucky.
40:21
Things have worked out. Things that could have gone
40:23
wrong went wrong. Not at like at, at, at, at at at
40:27
the time, like those bells or like that one time that was next
40:30
to a fire hall and suddenly, you know, the firefighters when the
40:34
fire truck went by and I'm like, that was during another
40:37
interpreters turn. So I've learned to avoid those
40:41
specific buildings that can. Close to recess.
40:46
You know what that's, that is bothersome because especially
40:49
with the microphones that we have nowadays that are, you
40:52
know, they, they only capture the sound that's around the
40:55
microphone itself. Yeah, not so much outside.
40:58
Um, but I mean, nothing can prevent you from capturing a
41:03
fire truck. Or.
41:06
Yeah. That's why I had to close my
41:08
window. No, there you go.
41:10
Yeah, but yeah, no, I. Totally did extreme.
41:14
And what you're saying now is that found an interpretation can
41:17
go on the road anytime and yes, Oh yeah, this is to go to global
41:21
AV, get ourselves hooked up with some good Wi-Fi and away you go.
41:25
Yeah, and I mean, you could definitely do Starling, but I
41:28
knew that I didn't necessarily want to be interpreting from
41:31
like a desert necessarily. You know, I knew that I was.
41:34
I could time it with going back into town because especially
41:37
from like the most, the longest I've been gone, I think living
41:40
in the van is like 2 1/2 months or something like that.
41:42
At some point you need to go back in town and just find a
41:44
place where you can do your laundry where you know you can
41:47
do that kind of thing. So I would just combine that
41:51
with. You got to stay in camping
41:53
grounds or things like that, right?
41:55
I do what they call boondocking mainly which is staying in legal
42:01
places but that are free. So in the United States, it can
42:05
be BLM lands like Bureau of Land Management, which are like Crown
42:08
lands and anybody is allowed to stay there for up to two weeks.
42:12
They usually have minimal infrastructure.
42:14
But I don't really need that much since I'm self-sufficient,
42:17
you know, I don't need to plug myself into anything or
42:19
whatever. Or you can stay some, some
42:22
municipalities encourage people to stay in their parks or all
42:26
the Walmarts. I mean, it's not very romantic,
42:27
but you can stay pretty much in all the Walmart parking lots if
42:30
you want. And, and you can stay in
42:32
campgrounds as well. But if you're gone for like two
42:34
or three months and every campground is $40 a night, it
42:38
adds up. Right.
42:40
But at the same time, but do sometimes people and you know
42:43
what's going on nowadays, do people confuse you with some
42:46
people who are actually homeless and living in their car?
42:50
I don't think they could with my particular fan.
42:54
OK. It's a nice van.
42:56
It's um, like, I mean, a lot of people live full time in their
43:01
fans. I'm not sure that I would enjoy
43:04
it full time. I still have my place in
43:06
Montreal. I'd have to get rid of too many
43:08
things that I'm attached to if I were to live full time in my
43:10
van. But I mean, it's it's a space
43:15
and if you are a safe in it and but I wouldn't want to, I mean,
43:19
even just it gets really hot. That's depending, you know.
43:22
And like you have like the like the the back part of the van
43:26
doesn't have windows to serve people like peek in to see if
43:29
you're. There, Yeah.
43:30
And that was a choice. I purposely chose not to have
43:32
very many windows. I sleep better when it's dark
43:35
and. What's the brand of the vehicle
43:38
if you don't mind me asking? That 350.
43:42
Ohm. OK, OK, I see.
43:45
It looks like an Amazon delivery.
43:46
To me, I thought, OK, I thought now first I thought it was an
43:49
RV, so that's how I pictured it. And now you're talking about the
43:52
windowless. I thought maybe a Mercedes, you
43:54
know, those big Mercedes. Sprinters.
43:56
It looks like it. The Mercedes are a bit wider and
44:00
they're not quite as high as mine.
44:01
Mine is narrower, it's higher. The Mercedes are also longer.
44:05
But I took advantage of the fact that I'm small to take a smaller
44:08
vehicle that I can park anywhere.
44:10
Like the the the wheel base of it fits into any regular car
44:14
parking so I can park anywhere. So you're smaller, the vehicle
44:18
small. I'm small, I'm not very tall, so
44:21
the vehicle is smaller. So I made I made the bed
44:24
smaller. For example, I can sleep
44:25
sideways on it. I can almost rest my my chin on
44:29
Carmen's head. I'm yeah, I'm not very tall.
44:33
That's the thing you know by by meeting online like this, we.
44:36
Don't. Yeah, we're all the same height.
44:37
It's pretty cool. That's awesome.
44:41
But what this is awesome too for our show just to show people who
44:45
are listening that you don't have to be at home all the time
44:47
like you don't. You can.
44:48
You can bring your your job on the road and all you need is the
44:53
right connections, the right people, the right tools and the
44:55
way you go. And another thing is I see my
44:58
family so much more now because I'll go to my mother's, you
45:01
know, and stay there for a week with her and I'll just work from
45:04
her place, you know. And so to me, it's giving me
45:07
opportunities of or even just earlier this year I went to
45:11
visit friends in Germany and stayed there for a month and
45:13
work from there. So it's, um, yeah, as long as
45:18
you organize yourself, I think that it, it can be freeing.
45:22
But I also love working in person.
45:25
It's so nice to see our colleagues.
45:27
It's so nice to, I mean, we need that.
45:29
So for me, the hybrid is working out really well.
45:33
I I feel that it gives me the best of both worlds that I
45:37
really enjoy. I think that your creativity led
45:43
to a really, really awesome way to live the hybrid, hybrid
45:50
interpretation that we do now. Oh, yeah.
45:52
I, I think it's, I mean, I think it's in a way it's inspiring
45:56
because. No, because.
45:57
You still get inspired, then goodbye.
45:58
Then they make big ones. Big enough for four people?
46:03
Because in the very beginning of the podcast, we, we, we have
46:06
this in common, right? We all love traveling, maybe
46:09
different styles of traveling, but we all, I think that most
46:12
interpreters have that in common.
46:14
And a lot of people exactly. And a lot of people said, well,
46:18
you know what we are, we're stuck at home.
46:21
We don't get to meet each other as much.
46:23
We don't, we don't travel as much and we're not in the booth
46:26
meeting, meeting other people, but listening to you.
46:30
It's very, you found a really creative way of doing this.
46:33
And you know what? I'm going to call my bank
46:36
tomorrow and I'm going to stop the mortgage and buy then
46:39
instead. You know what, though?
46:41
Come. Pick me up.
46:43
There was a big like a lot of people bought fans and now some
46:47
of them are going back to flying in other places.
46:50
And so I've been seeing a lot of vans for sale because I follow
46:54
sites for whatever advice and things like that for people who
46:59
are in their vans. And so I'm seeing them a lot.
47:02
And so I think that you could find a very nice used van so.
47:07
Previously. Bank previously enjoyed and
47:10
already full of laughter and adventure.
47:12
That's right. Yeah, no.
47:14
And I've, I've heard a lot of colleagues too that they even
47:16
during COVID, they would, since they were stuck somewhere, they
47:19
would go somewhere nice and be stuck somewhere nice for six
47:22
months. So that was another thing.
47:25
And I'm sure some of them still do that now because it doesn't
47:28
matter where we are, we now that we have online assignments,
47:33
yeah. Now we're lucky that way.
47:35
We're part of the privileged. Yes, absolutely.
47:39
So on that note, how we're going to conclude the?
47:43
Podcast. Yeah, well, that went by really
47:45
quickly. I know.
47:46
Well, thank you so much for coming, Carmen.
47:47
I know like you're super busy with my an assignment that I put
47:50
you on. But I'm really glad it worked
47:55
out and I love, I love this podcast, but I didn't think it
47:58
was that I had enough interesting things to say to add
48:01
to it and that you found it worthwhile.
48:03
Yeah, alright. So thank you very much for
48:05
coming. Carmen Ryan, everyone again,
48:09
don't forget to like, share, subscribe, and we'll meet each
48:12
other next time. Sounds good.