Meet Ahmed.

I would like to take a moment and pay tribute to a new and wonderful person in my life named Ahmed. Ahmed is the "office manager" in the Legal Department at the Refugee Clinic where I volunteer. I have strong reason to believe that he, his wife and son are refugees from Iraq who are now rather established in Cairo. Over this past week, in particular, I've had numerous opportunities to personally interact and benefit from Ahmeds', kind-hearted, thorough, paitent yet just ways of dealing with everybody comes to or calls the office. From these experiences, I'm inspired that it really is the "low guy" on the totom pole that can make the world so wonderful. He has no idea I'm writing this.

Ahmed coordinates the schedules of approx 10 interns, one manager, one Dr and all volunteer interpreters, like its as easy as eating a small ice cream cone. I've rarely seen someone, and a man especially!, multi-task with such efficiency and a warm smile.

Example 1: Early in the week, an interpreter was urgently called onto another case, thus leaving me and my client awkwardly staring at each other with no place to go. Without hesitation, Ahmed just moved the phone to our table (to monitor it) and assumed the role of interpreter. Working with interpreters can be a challenge due to trust issues in the form of the questions being properly translated, the complete answer coming back etc. If you've played the game "Telephone" you get an idea of the instability.
With Ahmed, it was seemless and he immediately instilled trust and confidence in me, the advocate, and the client, a mentally abused Iraqi refugee. On top of it all, he caught small cultural elements and suggested things that I never would have caught onto. For example, the client mentioned that his torturers spoke Arabic but with a certain accent/dialect. Ahmed directly translated this to me, then gently added, "Members of Al-qaeda are generally known to speak in that accent and they've also been known to occupy that area of Iraq. Would you like me to ask if he thinks his captors where specifically members of Al-qaeda?" I have no idea the details between militia groups, Al-queda, government insurgencies etc. He was so respectful and gentle in his questioning and I was really bummed when another inpterpeter came to relieve him of his duties.

Example #2. It was 11:15am and my client who was supposed to arrive at 10am called to say he was just 5 mins away. In the States, I would have said, "Nope, sorry. Too late. You'll have to wait for another appointment." They would never be 1.5 late for an appt to the UNHCR, they won't be for me either. In addition, its their case; if they don't really care about it I have other things to do too.
Well, in Egypt, as many other countires, time is MUCH, MUCH more flexible. So, Ahmed comes in and tells me the situation. I'm trying to be culturally sensitve but I also have class in 2 hours and have scheduled my time...Its a follow-up appointment and I do have some specific info I need from him. I explain this connundrum to Ahmed and he pats my shoulder and says no prob. He will give the client the remaining 10 min of his original appointment time and then he needs to leave and wait for another appointment. Ahmed very much agrees with me in that the client must respect time; our, his and in general. He explains the situation to the client (man-man, Iraqi-Iraqi, in Arabic which works better than me: young, female with interpreter) and everybody is happy.

This week we also established "our secret" connection-- we're both play the violin! His brother is actually the head conductor in Jordan and regularly performs for the King/Queen of Jordan! So we've talked about music and orchestra all week and in those rare moments in the early morning when its just the two of us in the office, he hums or sings his favorite concertos to me! Don't tell him I told you this!

In between all of this scheduling, interpreting, phone answering, smiling, he takes apart and repairs the small fan that makes everybody so much more comfortable! So here's to that quiet guy, who: takes care of that one extra phone call as you run out of the office, does everything that doesn't fall under anybody elses job description, makes the coffee in the morning, who's smile can bring your stress down 5 notches because its comfortable and really makes the office run though nobody fully recognizes it as they run past him. Here's to Ahmed!