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| The face of an old lady and Ley |
When I first started my solo international travels, I
attracted a normal amount of attention from men of a certain age.
I would like to think it is my exotic beauty
that draws them, but I know that is more likely the words “Visa to America”
tattooed in invisible ink across my forehead. When refusing marriage proposals
or answering shocked questions about my lack of a man, I always answered, “I’m
too young.” Of course, that didn’t really work for them since many of my
friends were married at 16 and many of my suitors had a wife or two who were 17
or 18 when they married. Here in South Sudan I have fewer elderly taxi
drivers asking for my hand, and more ambitious young whippersnappers.
Now that I’m 30, I can just say that
I’m too old for them—and that can sometimes work. I’ve yet to have
anyone here remark on my "good body maintenance," as an immigration officer in
India once did, surprised by the combination of my old age and youthful appearance.
Recently, I’ve started to take note of some of the clever
pick-up lines being used on me these days to compare with those from other places I've lived. Mostly they haven’t been so
original. Once we gave a ride to some soldiers into town, and as we were all
standing in the back of the pick-up truck together, we struck up a
conversation. Impressed by my Arabic ability and American-visa-like features,
he said, “Ana der ita.” Which just means, “I want you.” But I was able to crush
him with a “Young man, I am WAY too old for you.”
One morning while off for a lovely jungle bike ride, I
nodded at a passerby in casual non-verbal greeting, and he replied verbally,
“Hello, my wife!” I thought this was an interesting tactic—try to convince me
that we are already together, I just somehow forgot about our wedding.
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Actually, Mimi is so cute she can
make this messed up photo look good. |
Another time at a Mundri Express bus stop, a man came
up to me to have a friendly chat. In spite of the fact that I answered several
times in excellent Arabic, he insisted on proving to me that he can speak
English: ”I…you…husband or wife…” I answered, “No, thank you.” And he left.
Politeness is a virtue. Though, he did give me a choice, and actually, being a
South Sudanese husband isn’t a bad gig—you get your meals cooked, your food
washed, your gardens tended, your children raised, and even sometimes your
house built for you. But I don’t know that I could be the wife that does all
that stuff, as we’ve already established my skills in the domestic arts are
rather limited, and, last year at least, a casual observer of my garden would perhaps think that he
had stumbled upon a patch of jungle in the otherwise well-tended backyard lawn.
I used the wifely deficiency tactic in another recent
proposal attempt. One of the guys working on my house very subtly inquired as
to my marital status thus:
“So, when we are done with your house, when will your man
move in with you? He’ll come here then, right?”
Me: “Um, no. I don’t have a man.”
“Why not?”
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| You really want to married to this? |
Pause for me to think of a good reason, because if this
conversation was going the way I thought it was (it was), he really isn’t too
young for me, I think we’re about the same age, and I didn’t want to open that
door for him. So I went for, “Well, nobody wanted me.” (Let’s make him consider
why it is that I’m not
married and hopefully realize that he might not want to find that out.)
This has worked for me in the recent past because it takes
the conversation to an awkward place that ends it faster. I mean, you can’t
just ask someone “Why does nobody want you?” That implies there is something
wrong with that person (which, in my case, could possibly be true, but polite
people don’t want to imply that). But here in Mundri, I’m going to have to find another way or try to get out of
this conversation because in this case, as in another recent case when I was
offered 4 potential suitors in the space of five minutes after using that line,
my house-builder Lothario said:
“Well, I want you. Marry me.”
There was a tiny brief pause, but you can’t keep me
speechless for long—I decided that this conversation was just a hilarious joke
between two friends, and I laughed and said, “Oh no, you really don’t want me. I
can’t cook. I mean, people don’t like my food. I use too much sheta (hot peppers).”
Cassanova was undeterred by my statement, “No problem, I
like sheta. I’ll try your food.”
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My garden is going to be way better this year.
Probably. Maybe. |
At this point, I realized that this conversation was getting
way out of hand.
Fortunately, some other
people came over and joined us and we managed to change the subject and put
awkwardness behind us. But since then, this guy has been trying to prove to me
how much he loves
sheta. He came over
one day while I was weeding my garden (I’m turning over a new leaf this year,
no pun intended, and trying to do gardening things like “weeding” and
“watering.” At least this year, I’m pretty sure I know what is grass that can
be pulled up and what are the things that I don’t want to pull up). He
sauntered over and told me he wanted to try the American
sheta I’m growing in my garden. Since I’d only planted it the
previous week, I told him he would have to wait, and that, really, there is no
guarantee that they will grow here anyway. He swaggered away, glad to see that
his potential wife has garden-working tendencies.
But really this is an example of how easy it would be for me
to just get married already here. It reminds me of a conversation I had in
India about this very subject (“So, what’s wrong with you that you aren’t
married already?”). Rakesh and I had a
discussion about what people in our respective cultures think about the
‘unmarried.’ I told him that in my culture, people think you are sad and
pathetic because you couldn’t find anyone to love you, and so they feel sorry
for you. He said, “Oh. In India people just think you are lazy and don’t want
to grow up and start your life as a mature adult.” It seems the latter is more
my problem since I technically do have people willing to spend their lives working by my side at a cushy job I'll get them in America.
In a recent conversation with Baby, he said, “You could get
a man to marry you easily around here. There are many people available.”
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Baby eating honey and
telling me about his girl |
I switched the conversation to him and found out he has a
potential bride that he is considering right now. He hasn’t spoken to her about
marriage or anything yet, but he likes that she is nice, respectful, helpful—a
good girl. “Also,” he said, “She has a body. Not like me. I don’t have a body.
But if I get married then maybe I can get fatter.” Since he is a scrawny guy in
spite of eating everything indiscriminately (a running joke between myself, who
won’t eat bananas, Repent, who won’t eat a food we have here called ambata, and Lexon, who won’t eat
rice—but Baby will eat anything, even the instant oatmeal the Boss brought me
that we all find disgusting), this was a funny thought. He shrugged off my
laughter and said, “And whenever YOU find a man, you will get big and fat like
the women here.” He puffed out his cheeks, held out his skinny arms indicating
the future size of my hips, and gave a shuffling, butt-swinging walk, to show
me what I’ll be like once I find my Man.
Well, anyway, I guess I better go out and try to find that
guy who passed me on the street the other day and said, “Wo-man, how is it?”
Because, his pick-up line showed that he probably has the right amount of creativity and aplomb to build a
future with me. And of course, then
our children will have great skin.
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About 20 minutes after this photo with my
hippo guide in Burundi, he proposed marriage.
But that is a story for next time... |
The other day I saw a motivational Facebook quote
superimposed over a tranquil landscape scene. It said something to the effect
of “At the end of your life, you’re going to regret the things you didn’t do
and not the things you did do.” It was much more elegant than that, of course,
but even if it wasn’t, it doesn’t matter because I’m pretty sure there was a
waterfall somewhere in that tranquil landscape scene, which automatically
classes up everything. I thought to myself, “Yeah, that’s kind of true. I still
regret not petting that lion at the museum zoo in Niger while I was there.” At
the last moment I decided not to because there were lots of children around,
and I thought it might not be a good example for them, as they had all run up
to pet the hippo after I did. But who
cares about that? I should have pet that dang lion through the bars of his
cage. When else am I going to get a chance to do that? Other countries don’t
just let you walk up to the cages with carnivorous animals in them and stick
your hand in to pet them. I will regret not doing that for the rest of my life.
