Wednesday, November 15, 2006

The saga continues

I know you didn’t think it was going to end there.

This morning, I roused myself at the unconscionable hour of 7:00 am. (A benefit of working from home in a time zone 5 hours later than EST: no commute and slow mornings).

I dragged myself to a taxi and negotiated a decent fare.

When I walked into Dr. Liar’s office he didn’t bat an eyelash over his supposed presence in Mali.

He didn’t try to explain why he was in Dakar or apologize for his lie. He jumped straight to rude.

“You will have to write a formal letter to the director of the hospital to request authorization to speak with the patients.” The magic was in his tone. It simply sang with subtext: get out of my face.

I remained polite: Yes, but could you possibly speak to the patients and ask their permission directly?

No.

Could I meet with the directly personally to ask his permission?

Sure you could, but his office is all the way at the other end of the hospital. Again the tone, screaming the ludicrousness of such an idea.

Me=unfazed. “Okay. And his name is?”

“Monsieur the Director of the Fann Hospital?”

“Right but what’s his name?”

“Monsiur. The Director. OF THE FANN HOSPITAL.” [screaming subtext: get the FUCK out of my face]

Yes, but how can I write him a letter without his name? Without an address.?

“You must go to his office. It’s at the other end of the hospital.”

And then he stormed out of his office, shouting at his secretary on the way.

*****

But of course, M. le Directeur was not available. I did manage to find the Communication Director for the hospital who was very friendly, although he could do nothing to help me.

It seems there was an all day meeting that was starting right that minute, and there was no way the director could give me his authorization. Come back tomorrow.

And so I will.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

HAHAHAHA, Sorry but I laughed so hard at your story, especially with the sarcasm u used to narrate it. Dr liar reminds me of the typical senegalese with too much power in his hands who thinks he can abuse it at will and get away with anything, like rudely treating everyone from his secretary to the customer, or telling a bald-faced lie. They get their cue from the president himself. Didn't he promise that there would not be anymore power cuts starting from october the 15 th ?

12:54 PM  
Blogger kan said...

Oh! Just found you! I can't wait to back read.... (is that even a term?) I dropped by to say good luck with NaBloPoMo!

Cheers,
Kahli

8:56 PM  

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