Article: Private Contractor Trains Dari and Pashto Translators

From http://www.insidebayarea.com/education/ci_19224139

Translating a lucrative and sometimes scary proposition
By Robert Jordan
October 30, 2011

Jen Shelby uprooted from Texas last year to move to the Bay Area, committed to learning Pashto. It is a language spoken by few Americans, and Shelby hopes it will reunite her with her husband, who works in Afghanistan.

Shelby, 28, is taking free, full-time training with Mission Essential Personnel in Pleasanton, the military's largest supplier of translators in Afghanistan, to become a Pashto interpreter.

The Ohio-based contracting company says its Pashto and Dari interpreters from the United States earn between $125,000 to $275,000 for a year's work with the Army in Afghanistan.

The Army employs two types of linguists, those it recruits and enlists as soldiers -- primarily native Afghans in the U.S. on permanent legal status -- and private civilian contracts, said Lt. Col. Frank Demith, an assistant deputy for foreign language and culture for the Army.

Despite the government's need for Dari and Pashto speakers, there are only a few dozen places around the country teaching the two most common languages of Afghanistan. The Bay Area is home to two institutions that have offered courses in Pashto and Dari.

Cal State East Bay began offering Dari and Pashto last fall and offered an immersion course this past summer but lost its grant from the Department of Education due to budget cuts, said program director Valerie Smith.

Read the full article at http://www.insidebayarea.com/education/ci_19224139