It begins on the first day of class for a Masters in Educational and Social Development at the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional, located in the city of Bogotá, Colombia. This was when our two protagonists, Sammy Riley and Diana Toloza, met for the first time. Their reasons for signing up to the Master’s program were very different. Diana was a nurse with a desire to understand the social dimensions of public health, while Sammy was a high school English teacher with a desire to contribute to the communities where he did volunteer work on the outskirts of Bogota. Neither of them had ever done a translation before.

Their two years of classes began and Sammy quickly fell in love with Diana’s intelligence and determination, while she blissfully ignored him. She didn’t think of him as anything more than a “nice gringo”. They did homework together. Sammy was giving it his all in order to keep up with Diana’s high academic level. When he sent Diana his work for each essay they did together via email, at the end he would a very respectful invitation asking her to go out for a coffee. Diana ignored these requests and kept her responses formal. “Esteemed Samuel, cordial greetings. I would like to thank you for your valuable contribution…”.

At the same time, one of the professors at the Master’s program heard that Sammy was an English teacher and stopped him one day during the coffee break. “Teacher,” she said, “I need your help. My son is failing English at high school, and if you’re any good, I’ll take you to my office to teach my team.” Sammy started working with the young man who ended up passing and even enjoying English. The professor kept her promise, and within months Sammy was working three days a week as the in-house English teacher at an international NGO based in Bogota.

After a few months in the office, a project manager asked him, “hey Sammy, can you do a translation for us?”. He remained silent for a moment. “I really don’t know,” was the sincere reply. “But I can try, and if it is terrible then just don’t pay me.” Well, it turned out that Sammy could translate documents, and they were good, and he did get paid. That’s how he started doing written translations for one, and then two international NGOs in Bogota.

Meanwhile in the Master’s program, there was no real change to Sammy’s situation with Diana. The gringo had fallen head over heels for the Colombian who was extraordinarily focused on her studies and barely aware of his existence. Finally, it was time for the students’ farewell party after two years of classes. Sammy understood that it was all or nothing with Diana, and if he didn’t make a move at the party he was never going to see her again. After dancing together for the first time (a reggaeton song), Sammy sat outside the party with Diana and told her “you fascinate me”. To say she was shocked by this declaration is an understatement. Luckily, Cupid turned up for work that day and had good aim with the arrows. This unlikely couple, the good-natured gringo and the diligent nurse, began dating, traveling the world and having adventures.

After 6 months together, Sammy finished his Master’s thesis and returned to his home country of Australia in order to work and spend time with his family, as he had planned before his unexpected romance with Diana. Despite the tremendous distance and time difference, their love survived and 18 months later Sammy returned to Bogota with a plan: to open a translations company. Given her organizational skills and experience managing the public health department of hospital, Diana was named Legal Representative of ONG Traducciones and the company was born on September 28, 2012.

However, while it’s very easy to register a company with the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce, it’s very hard to make a company profitable. So Sammy put on his best suit and tie, rode his bicycle to the north of Bogota and started knocking on the doors of all NGO offices and companies that might need translations, always offering a free trial to entice potential customers. At the same time, Diana began to study translation and started doing her first English to Spanish jobs. A few months after registering the company, Sammy landed his first interpreting job, a five-day training program on safety in the field. Despite his nerves, the training program was an absolute success thanks in part to his interpreting. Sammy discovered that he enjoyed being a “bridge” for communication as an interpreter, which meant that all of the attendees could learn, understand and fully participate in the program.

The two former Master’s students, now business partners and engaged to be married, identified a gap in the services their company offered: official translations. Sammy started studying for the exam to become an official translator, which was extremely expensive and involved a lot of pressure – very few people passed, and a huge majority failed the exam. He began to study wherever he could: he listened to radio news bulletins on the bus and interpreted the newsreaders; he played podcasts while washing dishes and tried to keep up with the announcers; he slept with the dictionary next to him, reading it like a fairy tale every night to learn more Spanish words; and he simulated the exam conditions, going to university libraries and doing practice exams to improve his ability interpreting under pressure.

As many people know, if you put in the hard work then it brings success. On February 4, 2013, Sammy was appointed Official Translator No. 0368 of Colombia by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

With this new facet of the company, Sammy and Diana sought to expand the business. Sammy delivered official translations by bicycle to clients in all parts of Bogota. He began doing interpreting jobs in different sectors: the launch of a new industrial sticky tape; contentious meetings between Ministers and foreign experts; and field visits deep into the Amazon jungle. Unforgettably, Sammy was invited to be the official translator for a wedding of a beautiful couple, who are still together today.

Like a tree, ONG Traducciones slowly grew. After knocking on many doors in Panama, clients started contacting them from this neighboring country as a result of the high quality and speed of their written translations. Thanks to Diana’s contacts from her job as a university professor, they started doing academic translations to facilitate the publication of research articles in indexed journals. At the same time, Sammy remembered that he had been subtitling videos for a number of decades in his own documentaries and had a knack for this work.