Beeing

 It happened!

Even though the principal didn’t come with the keys so we could give chairs to our audience, 8 of the 9 participants did show up, and we had an audience of 22. I feared even those 8 wouldn’t come. We had our Close Of Service Conference at the beautiful Lake Langano all last week, returning Friday—a no-school day, because of pending national exams. The tri-school final spelling bee was scheduled for the next day, Saturday. With no phone numbers of my students, I had no way of reminding them to come.

But come they did. Ammanuel was dressed in his best, corduroys and a dress shirt, and he came with seven of his tiny friends, ready to cheer him on. Daniel and Yared (my most active English teacher) quizzed the contestants beforehand as we waited for the participants to trickle in. Daniel reported back to me: They know all the words.

To solve the no-chair fiasco, my students helped Daniel and Yared carry all the benches and desks from the school’s outdoor cafe—the Ethiopian version of a teacher’s lounge, manned for coffee and tea-brewing by sweet Rehma and her four-year-old, Nora (whose favorite toy is the latch on my purse).

Sights: Medhin (grade 2) beaming after each word she spelled right, after each 6^th grade student she eliminated; she kept bringing her hand to her mouth to cover her teeth that couldn’t help but show themselves as she smiled with pride, joy. Yared and Daniel smiling, shaking their heads—impressed. The school guard herding two wandering goats behind the audience, as I wondered Has there ever been such a backdrop for a bee? The kids putting their heads and limbs under the outdoor faucet after the bee—it was hot.

Sounds: Applause after each correctly-spelled word. Muruts, in the audience, saying “yes” in agreement with the sample sentences; for example—my reading “Flavor. My favorite flavor of gum is banana”—and Muruts saying, “Yes” like an old man in church.

Eventually only four were standing—Frezgi, Medhin, Nahom, and Ammanuel. Everything I threw at them—gorgeous, double, maximum, precious, delightful, incredible, necessary—they hit out of the park. When I read the 100^th and final word (transportation), and Ammanuel spelled it correctly—I looked into the audience and asked Daniel what to do: I wasn’t prepared for them to know all 100. I gave them four more rounds of repeats, and they remained standing.

And so, we had four first place winners. It was a bee.

Contestants standing with their prizes: storybooks, pencils, certificates, and candy. Clockwise from top left: Merhawit S., Merhawit Z., Tekle H., Medhin, Frezgi, Ammanuel, Nahom, Tekle G.