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.