In a Party of French Strangers

The year is 1996-7, I was almost 11 years of age. At school, our French teacher thought it a pertinent idea, in order to help us learn La Francais, to converse avec a class from Lycée Francais. Good idea, eh? (or was it L'ecole? dont really remember)


What I was to find out later, was that the Lycée Francais had an abundant resource of gals. And I was an explorer. Keep in mind, I was 11, the tween years, and, well, curious! To say the least. Suffice to say, speaking proper French was NOT my highest priority at the time, cavez vous? All I needed to know was J'adore and J'aime vous :P

So, it all started off fine; comment ca va? ou habit ou? comment tu t'appelle? quelle age a tu? You know, the usual!

I came across one gal, LK. Unbeknown to my french teacher, me and the girl, after exchanging a few, gulp, I cant believe i'm saying this, LETTERS (yes, this was our email back then, email was still catching on) we exchanged phone-numbers (mobiles had not caught on as a trend either!), and were calling.

One fine day as I was playing downstairs, my parents hollered that I had a phone-call. Said girl was inviting me to a party, at her school.

Now, has this ever happened to you? To be invited to a party where, you quite literally know no one, and the girl you are talking to, you have never seen. I deserve a prize for the ultimate in blind dates!

So here I am, in a sea of strangers, and the one person I know, I dont know!

Thats one of my strong points tho, throw me in any environment, and I will click with people, im sociable!

So, LK was taller than me :( (I was still growing!) which made dancing awkward, so we just stuck to talking. I met some of her friends, they were nice, there I was thinking that cussing had me a grown-up when these guys were doing god knows what!

It was an enjoyable, albeit awkward evening. I spent it mostly on the sidelines watching their interactions, talking to her, her friends etc.

I was the only one from the correspondence class who got invited tho! How cool was that?

Email was just starting out, back when dial-up used to cost 30KD a month from KEMS. I tried staying in touch, but we got out of touch.

So LK, if by some weird, bizarre, twist of fate you happen to land upon this, I thank you for the invite, and the anecdote too!