Portoviejo, Ecuador - Seth Mazow, Interplast staff: When I got to the radio station with Elizabeth (one of four local Rotary exchange students, all of whom have been doing incredible jobs as volunteer translators for us), I was in for quite a surprise. Javier wanted to interview me for the show.
Live.
Although I am pretty outgoing, I usually don't like being put on the spot. But I couldn't really say no. He was helping me do my job better, it was only fair that I do the same for him.
He began by asking me some pretty basic questions. But then he wanted me to record a canned shout-out to Interplast and the people of Portoviejo. He wanted me to do it the way other callers always do, which is loudly and full of slangy attitude. Unfortunately, Interplast does not easily lend itself to such hipness.
After a few tries, he wrote me a little script in Spanish and English, which I supplemented with whatever hipness was left in my crew-cut, cubicle-inhabiting, "obsessively-checking-your-work-email-is-
cool" personality. Eventually, I reached an acceptable patina of coolness. I gave a "big shout-out" to "all my homies at Interplast" and "my people" in Portoviejo before concluding with the ever-popular "Peace, y'all!" This seemed to thrill Javier, as it was (finally) just what he was looking for. Elizabeth was less excited, as she had to translate my monologue into Spanish while matching my attitude and not bursting into laughter.
She did fine, and I thought we were done because Javier had us hang out in this little room with microphones away from the soundboard for a while. We talked about him, Interplast, Ecuador and music. After a little while, the next DJ came in, saw us, and decided to revolve her show around us as well. Javier interrupted every once in a while with taped quotes from Jorge, but besides that he just hung out in the soundboard room. All these other random people came in (we're in the background of the picture) and began talking about Interplast, Rostros Felices, the children, clefts, burns, etc. We took some live questions and talked on the air for another hour or so before we left.
It was really fun in an awkward sort of way, but it felt good to be able to explain to a large audience how Interplast empowers local surgeons to help people like Javier.
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