Amy G's Diamond Girls: Gyselle Meulens

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Editor's Note: Get to know all the Giants' girls on Amy G's featured series "Diamond Girls."
Check out all of Amy G's "Diamond Girls" in her archive.

Amy: Thanks so much for logging on to CSNBayArea.com. We've got another webisode of "Diamond Girls" and joining us is Gyselle Meulens, wife of Bam Bam, but now we need to say Sir Bam Bam. We just finished an incredible on-field ceremony. I have never witness anybody being officially knighted so that was super exciting for me. I can only imagine what that was like for you to watch that happen.

Gyselle: Wow. It was a first for us too.

A: No one's been knighted in your family? Ok.

G: Not-not that I know of. It's so special for him and of course for the family to have now a sir in the family. Incredible.

A: Show us the medal.

G: So this is what he got today.

A: Oh, it's gorgeous.

G: This is gorgeous. And he got it from the Queen of the Netherlands, which is Queen Beatrix.
A: Mhmm. Now, how much is he going to use this, Gyselle? That he's a sir, you have to call me Sir, 'cause I know you don't have to call him Sir.

G: Well, I was thinking to call him Sir because if I call him Sir he has to call me Lady.

A: Oh, there you go. Very nice. That's a good trade-off.

G: Yeah so I talked to him. I'm going to call him Sir everyday so he can call me a lady everyday.

A: There you go. All right. Well even if you don't call him Sir, you just tell him that he should call you a lady. Now listen, you and Bam Bam have two gorgeous children. I see you here at the park and then I find out today that you actually are working for an investment firm back in Curacao.

G: Curacao.

A: So you're one busy mama.

G: Yes, I work. Everyday when I'm in Curacao I go to the office. I leave the kids with my parents because they live in Curacao. Two days a week they go to Hensley's mom but Eli is now going to school so I wake up, go to work like any other parent doing, and um...In that whole life there is also traveling. For work and traveling for to be here with Hensley.
A: How long is the trip from San Francisco to Curacao?
G: It will take you about 12 hours to go back and forth because you have to fly into Miami and that's six hours, and then from Miami to Curacao is three hours, so...

A: So, when Hensley came on to the scene here with the Giants the big story was that he spoke five languages, of course. And I hear you speak several yourself. What do you speak?
G: I speak Dutch, English, Spanish and Papiamento, which is the-

A: Papiamento. I love the name.
G: One of the other languages from the islands.
A: One of my favorites to hear. I just love saying Papiamento. Now, what do you and Hensley use when you speak to each other?

G: Well, you know, it's funny because we use Papiamento to speak to each other because that's the language which we've known each other, and when I met him he said to me, "I can speak Japanese." And I was like, "Yeah, yeah. Right." No, he said, no really, I can speak Japanese. I said, "Yeah," of course so he tried it on me and I was like, "Ok." I didn't know what this means but whatever. So there was like the next year, we went to Japan for three weeks, and actually when we got to the airport he started speaking to the people and they really understood him, and I was like, "So this is true. You can speak Japanese."

A: So that was impressive.
G: Yes. So that was very much impressive. And when I want to like upgrade my Spanish, I talk to him.

A: Ok. So you switch it out whenever you need to work on something.

G: He's my Spanish teacher.
A: He's the Spanish teacher for a lot of us around here. Yeah, I'm always checking my Spanish with him. "Did I say that right?" And lastly for you: You know, Hensley's a- As you know. I'm not telling you that you don't know - he's in a tough spot, being the hitting instructor, and the Giants have not always had great offense in the years he's been here and the years he has not been here. So a lot of times undue criticism falls on the hitting instructor. They're the fall guy. How do you handle that at home? What's your role?

G: Well, Hensley is the kind of guy that, he knows that the criticism comes to him and he knows that he has to handle it, and he handles it. I don't know how but he handles it very, very well I should say, because when he comes home he just wants to talk to me. He's rarely about go have a drink or whatever. He just wants to talk to me about whatever happened that night on the field, and that's it. He's very - He's a very calm guy. He can take a lot of, a lot of stress. He can take a lot of criticism. So they can shoot some more.

A: Keep it coming.

G: Yeah, he's - he's - he's a guy that...I mean, I do a lot but he, the way he can handle stress, that's perfect. He can do four or five things at the same time so yeah.
A: Do you ever call him Bam Bam?
G: No.

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