Rotes Kreuz

Fear not, people in emergency situations, I am again certified as a "first aider." I spent Friday and Saturday getting trained to perform lifesaving techniques... in German. Now, truly, my German is getting better, but I just can't trust it too accurately help someone with sonnenschtreike (sunstroke, albeit misspelled- well, who knows, I added each and every letter I thought might fit into the word). Everyone except for the trainer spoke English and two people did quite a bit of translating... but honestly... they gave me a certificate... Perhaps my favorite moment happened while demonstrating my ability to perform CPR for 10 minutes. (This may not sound as exhausting as it felt.) The trainer told us time was up, and yet still I continued CPR because I was so focused... oh, yes, and because I couldn't verstande ihnen! Another beautiful moment happened when we were given silicone faces to place on the dummies with instruction in Deutsch. I leaned over to the nearest translator and asked what made the masks magic (zauber). She cracked up and told me that the masks were clean (sauber). I still can't hear the difference.

Thank goodness this is like my 8th training in as many years.