Pas de problème, Madame.

From The Conakry Chronicles, memories created while I served as Director of the American International School of Conakry, Guinea, in West Africa, from 2016-2019.

Security of the school compound and the precious clients we have, our students, is of utmost importance. In fact, we have three guards on campus at all times, 24/7. They don’t let anyone inside the school gates without an appointment. And they are essential in helping us get the kids into the waiting cars when school is over. School is out at 4 p.m. and cars start to line up outside the gates at about 2:30. (Most of the cars have drivers employed by the students’ families.)

When we open the gate the first car in line drives up, and our guards, who know every car, every license plate, the name of every driver, recognize which child belongs into that car. They shout out “Alessane, Sidi, Safiatou!” and now the teachers inside the compound round up the called-for children. For a kid, the best part of the day (maybe) is when you are waiting for the car to pick you up, and you get to run around, free, stealing some time when no teacher, no parent, no timetable is telling you what to do. When that call comes, it is unwelcome notice that free time is over, and it is time to dawdle.

When we finally round up the right children and make sure they have their book bag, their water bottle, their little sister, the guards allow them to climb into the waiting car, which makes a U and drives back down the narrow drive to take its charges home. And the next car in line moves up. This process takes about 20 minutes every day.

I had the bright idea of more efficiently matching the kids to cars.

So I went to tell the head guard, Mr. Diallo, that starting the next day, I wanted him to take a clipboard and 20 minutes before 4 p.m. pickup, go outside and simply write down which cars were in which order, come back in and give the list to us inside the compound so we could round up the kids and “line them up” so to speak. We’d cut down on a lot of yelling, a lot of hunting down at the last minute. We’d efficiently anticipate which car was up next, and have the kids ready to climb in. “Presto! We’ll cut the time in half!” I was thinking.

So I said, “Mr. Diallo. Tomorrow, I would like you to get a clipboard and go outside…”

“Pas de problème, Madame, pas de problème.”

“No, wait, I’m not finished. I’d like you to take a clipboard and about 20 minutes before we open the gates…”

“Pas de problème, Madame, pas de problème,” he said, nodding.

“No, wait, listen to me, I’m trying to tell you something…”

“Pas de problème, Madame.”

“…Okay, good, pas de problème. So… I want you to pass down the row of cars and just write the name of the child who belongs in that car so that you can then give…”

“Pas de problème, Madame.”

“…so you write down the name of the student, and can then give that list to a teacher, and we can round up the kids here, have them ready for the cars in order.”

“Pas de problème, Madame.”

“Okay, good. We’ll try it.”

The next day, I go out at 3:50 to see how it is going to go, to watch my brilliant idea in action, to see my teachers helping line up kids in a matching parallel universe that reflects the lineup of cars outside.

But everyone is milling around, the kids are playing wildly and the guards are huddled next to the gate.

I walk over and there is Mr. Diallo flipping back and forth through ten pages on his clipboard. I look closely at it, and I see he has painstakingly, in beautiful handwriting (I’m not kidding, the guy should letter signs for a living), written a chart on ten pieces of paper, listing each child by row, with the make of the family car in a first column, and the license plate number in a second column.

At 3:40, he had gone outside and walked down the line, like I asked, and noticed the first car in line was for Ibrahima Bah…so he leafed through his clipboard and found Ibrahima Bah’s name on the 6th page, 7th name down…and he wrote a “1” next to his name. Gemma Sintra’s car was next…and flipping through his pages, found her on page 3, 2nd from the top…

And now he was trying to figure out a way to communicate to the teachers the line-up of the 20 cars, and was flipping through his list, page after page, back and forth…It took 40 minutes to get the kids into the right cars that day. And I got emails from several parents complaining about the long wait. I agonised over how to apologise and explain. What I really wanted to say was “Pas de problème, pas de problème.”

© Sarah Knightwriter