The Grand Am of Guinea

Ruth, the school secretary came into my office and babbled something about the Grand Am, Madeleine’s old car that we had left in Kitt’s driveway in Coquitlam back in July. At least that’s what I thought she was talking about….

One thing I should point out at the outset of this entry is that I sometimes, no make that all the time, have difficulty understanding our school secretary. Ruth is a lovely lady with a heart of gold and quasi-servitude. Often times, I have trouble discerning the language she speaks and what she is trying to say. Ruth speaks four languages, French, English, her ethnic dialect, Sousou, and, what I call Ruthtalk. Ruthtalk is the language she uses whenever she talks to me. I’ve accepted that it is not a speech impediment on her part but rather a hearing impediment on my part. It appears, at least to me, that I am the only one that doesn’t always understand her. The issue may simply be synthonic – me unable to adapt to my environment, including Ruthtalk; or physical – the natural and inevitable depreciation of hearing due to age compounded by all that Rolling Stones music (now that was real music!) I used to listen to at full blast when I was 16 years old. In any case, by the time Ruth finishes telling me what she wants or needs to tell me, my mind still hasn’t synchronized and tuned into the language she has chosen to speak. It all makes for an interesting secretary-boss working relationship. On the positive side, Ruth has been very patient with me and my slow progress in becoming fluent in Ruthtalk. As a matter of fact, lately, whenever she says something to me, the pauses between the first, second, and third time she repeats what she is saying get shorter and shorter, which is a sure sign that she has accepted the otological challenges of her boss. Or maybe she just thinks I’m dense. Any ways, getting back to Madeleine’s Grand Am supposedly sitting in Kitt’s driveway in Coquitlam…

That day, it turned out Ruth was not talking about Madeleine’s Grand Am sitting in Kitt’s driveway in Coquitlam but rather about Guinee’s Grande Dame. The official driver of Guinea’s First Lady, the new President’s newly anointed wife that he took on three months before the election, was sitting in the outer office. The gentleman driver wished to speak with me. Wow, I was getting summoned by the driver of Guinea’s First Lady…a far cry from having to deal with Madeleine’s old jalopy sitting in Kitt’s driveway in Coquitlam. I wasn’t really sure where this was going to lead me. However, one thing I knew for sure, this was definitely going towards good blog material.

La Grande Dame de Guinée requested some information about our school because she was contemplating bringing her two sons to Guinée (from Paris) to live with her and her new appendage, the new President of Guinea. How cool is that? I gave the driver my card and told him to convey my greetings to his Masteress, La Grande Dame de Guinée, as well as a personal invitation to her Grandness to come to the school with her two boys so as to see for herself if our school was suitable for the royal presidential progeny.

That was four weeks ago. Still no sign of the presidential motorcade at the gates of our campus, and Madeleine’s Grand Am is still sitting in Kitt’s driveway in Coquitlam. Still waiting.