Franglais Expats: In the Navy!

A few weeks back I was contacted by a woman in town about working as an interpreter on a US ship that would be coming to town at some point this spring. I had expected the work to take place in March, and calculated that Noah would be a "bottle baby" by then, making things easy on me, but...well...the Navy came to town a couple of months too early for that! Needless to say, I jumped at the chance to work on the ship and started up my first day of interpreting with three other ladies on a Friday in January.

On our first day to the ship it was explained to us that in response to growing US interest in West Africa (oil) the US Navy has embarked upon a new mission dubbed the Africa Partnership Station. From this point forward there will be a US ship (or ships?) somewhere off the west coast of Africa at all times. The ships will be manned with an international crew, and this particular ship has a crew representing many European nations while also carrying a number of African "ship riders" who apparently came aboard at some point along the trip. The goal will be not only to provide maritime security along the African coast, but more importantly, to teach the African nations how to protect their own coasts, maintain their ships, track and stop illegal fishing, react in a medical emergency, and much more. An additional goal for the sailors on board is to carry out goodwill work in each country, including re-roofing schools, building orphanages and delivering prepacked meals to the poor. Looks like an interesting (and welcome!) change in US foreign policy to me.

See here for a military explanation: Stars and Stripes

Each week I drive to the port twice to teach French in one of the oil companies located there, but on my first day driving out to the ship I was very excited to see the outline of the USS Fort McHenry wayyyyyyyyyy off in the distance!

And here she is, right at the end of the road, nestled in among the "traditional" African paraphernalia on either side of the road. What a rush it was to know there was a whole community of Americans visiting Port-Gentil for a week!

The interpreters' job, we were told that day, was for each of us to join a specific training course and interpret between the US navy "teacher" and the Gabonese navy "students". There would be one interpreter per course, and we could decide which interpreter would cover which course. One subject was martial arts (!!), another was about how to manoeuvre small boats out at sea (wooo-hooo!), and then there was tropical medicine (interesting) and computers (no one wanted to interpret for that one).

Ratri (Indonesian), Mary (Nigerian) and I were excited and ready to get the interpreting underway! (Fourth interpreter Elodie from France took the picture, with the USS Fort McHenry behind her back.) As Port-Gentil is a tiny town, we already knew each other and were very happy to be working together on the ship.

Containers had been stacked two high and were being used to protect the ship from any possible danger on land. A little welcome tent was then erected in front of the blockade and used as an assembly point each morning for the Gabonese military men arriving for training.

Out at sea were four well-armed small boats guarding the port side of the ship (I actually learned port from starboard while interpreting). I sure felt sorry for those guys out there day and night under the hot African sun and in the harsh tropical rains! Click to enlarge.

I was quickly asked to run to the head of the line of Gabonese soldiers to interpret between the US sailor signing everyone in and each individual as they approached the table on the first day. While there were seemingly hundreds of Gabonese sailors ready to board the ship for training, the vast majority had brought nothing but the uniform they wore as ID. Most acted quite surprised and relatively offended when I asked them to present proof of identification. "What? Are we in school?" asked one outraged sailor, while another one told me that military men from one country should automatically be accepted by the military of another.

I got so frustrated with their comments that I took it upon myself to break out of interpretation mode at one point and tell the Gabonese sailors that this was a safety measure and that surely they couldn't expect to board a US military ship without ID, could they?!!!!! The bemused young US sailor signing them all in told me the situation had been similar in all other African countries visited so far, although he couldn't understand why. It seems, I responded, that the military is above the law in Africa, and it's only ordinary citizens (and expats) who are expected to carry ID at all times. We had a good laugh a while later when we saw a group of civilian nurses approach the table, each with ID in hand!

Here's a shot of one of the few Gabonese sailors to bring ID on that first day.