Lost in Translation

In Italy for over 20 years I am often called on to translate, help with admin tasks and the like.

In some documents I do call on Google Translate, as it has improved noticeably from its early years, with reasonably accurate results, which I always review and tweak.  

Thankfully, especially right now, international diplomacy is rarely the subject matter, but it could have created, or resolved, a topical exchange when translating a numbered list of to-do items on a furniture and fixtures list:

18. Cabinet resolution

was translated as this:

18. Delibera di Giunta: Resolution of the Junta 

A Crimp in my Equanimity

In two days, on March 9th, two years ago we began a journey of nightmarish, surreal proportions, which most of us had never experienced and which has left us unmoored and adrift, and from which we, since you’re reading this, have come through alive, though not untouched or unmoved, only to be launched into that which can only be described at best as a humanitarian crisis of catastrophic proportions led by The Just One Bad Actor it takes, and defended by another Actor with some pretty good moves and courageous leadership dancing a pas de deux of death, destruction and desperation. 

This will take all of our reserves of resilience, patience, calm, tolerance, equanimity, strength of character, reason, rationality, compassion and empathy, most of which we have experienced here in this small Tuscan hill town for the last two years and can be an inspiration and example to all. 

Kerry Bell

Barga, Italy