What's My Name?

My friends somehow convinced me to grow this wacky beard-ish thing. Should it stay or should it go?

I am a man of many names here. My African name is Issifu (or my spelling: Izzy-foo), in honor of a little kid with a runny nose I met at the beach. Our friend Yamba recently started calling me Emmanuel Grant "because it sounds good." My last name usually becomes either Fullah (an African tribe) or Fulham (an English soccer team). And Pa Foday, the ancient man who sleeps in a burned-out building near my front door, apparently thinks my name is Mr. Brown. My neighbor once asked him why he calls me that. He slowly lifted his head to look at me and stammered, "Notto you name?" Fair enough, old Pa. Call me as you wish.

I camped on the beach last weekend with four other guys. We slept under palm-branch huts with the crabs until a giant rainstorm soaked us and we went running for shelter at the nearby beach bar. The next day we were supposed to eat giant lobsters that my friend Mohamed had been saving for us, but they were stolen overnight. When we finally left, there were no taxis in sight because of the fuel crisis (a gallon of gas shot up to about $7 over the weekend). With no other option, we walked a couple miles up the road, kicking around half a coconut shell until we found a lone taxi ready to overcharge us.

Then it was on to Freetown for a Filipino karaoke party. It was fairly uneventful until a bunch of Filipino girls started line dancing to a heavily accented rendition of Achy Breaky Heart. Fantastic.

Game Time

Apparently it's Track and Field season. Last week I took a bus full of radio kids to "Sports Day" at a school in Magburaka, 20 minutes from here. Everyone ran in their socks or barefoot on the dirt track, just like in Chariots of Fire. All running events ended with someone passing out at the finish line or before -- guess no one told them to hydrate before the race. My girls ran a 4x100 meter relay as special guests from Radio Maria and they finished a solid second place. The boys were supposed to run, but they were preempted when chaotic victory celebrations on the field after every race forced the organizers to quit early. The above photo is from this week's Sports Day at Saint Francis secondary school for boys, which is next door to my workplace.

Some highlights from Magburaka:

My personal favorite event -- the Tug-of-Peace.

The Disabled 100 meters. The girl in yellow busted out with an amazing victory dance when she was given her award of one Snickers.

These kids are fast.

I helped another VSO with kid control at the Makeni library on Saturday. After coloring and lots of Play-doh fun, we played a fine game of chicken-chicken-monkey. You never see ducks or geese around here anyway. And it's funnier with that name.

The Ex-Combatant Life

Last week's Pikin News topic was street children. We interviewed a 14-year-old boy named Franklin who lives in the town square and is a former rebel soldier. That means he couldn't have been more than 6 years old when he was taken from his family, given an AK-47 and forced to join the Revolutionary United Front. He now sleeps on top of tables in the market and pushes wheelbarrow loads to pay for his school fees. Franklin hasn't seen his family since the war.

Speaking of boy soldiers, you should read A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. Rumors have begun here that a Hollywood film called Child Soldier (based on this book) is in the works and a crew is coming to Makeni next month to begin research. They're rushing to finish building the new hotel in town to accommodate them. So I hear.