Spelling Bee

There was some time before dinner, so I popped into the bar for a quick beer. It was early still, not time yet for the big crowds to gather, and there was only one man sitting at the bar, gin in hand. I saw his eyes light up when he spotted me. In English, he asked me my name.

"Fatoumata," I replied.

"Ah yes," he said , tracing his fingers through the lines of dust on the bar. "F-A-T-O-U-M-A-T-A," he spelled aloud.

I grinned. "And you?"

"My name's Souleyman, but you can call me Gambia. That's where I'm from. G-A-M-B-I-A."

I invited him to sit with my friends and me. He carried over his gin and his cigarettes, smiling big, and began inquiring after, and then spelling out, my friend's names.

"Have you ever been in a spelling bee?" I asked.

Gambia looked puzzled. I explained to him what it was. "For example, spell school." He obediently, and correctly, spelled it, taking to the idea of a spelling bee like a tsetse fly to my neck on a bike ride through the bush.

"Spell Newjose!" he commanded gleefully.

"Gambia, I don't even know what that is." I tried anyway.

"No!" he declared triumphantly.

"Okay, spell Mississippi."

He looked thoughtful while smoking his cigarette. "M-A-S-I-S-P-Y."

"I have a serious question for you now, Gambia." He nodded in encouragement. "What do you think of your president?" This was a delicate matter and I wasn't sure he would be comfortable discussing it, even if he was in a different country.

"J-A-M-M-E-H," he spelled out.

"No, no," I said. "I don't want you to spell his name. What do you think of him?"

His face grew serious. He rolled his head back, looking at the ceiling, clutching his glass of gin. I grew nervous that I had crossed a line by asking that question.

Suddenly, he threw his head forward, gazing intently at the 3 of us, eyes aglow.

"I've got it! Cisse! Spell Cisse!"