A proposal of sorts
This happened at the clinic earlier while I was standing outside chatting with the security guard and cleaners.
I was approached by one of the nurses…
Nurse: I want to ask you something.
Me: Okay…
Nurse: My friend wants to marry a white man.
Me: She wants to marry me?
Nurse: NO!
Me: Why not me?
Nurse: She wants somebody else.
Me: (pretending to be hurt) Somebody younger and better looking than me?
Nurse. Yes.….I mean no.
Me: Hmmm.
Nurse: But you are already married.
Me: No I’m not.
Cleaner: But you could have two wives.
Me: I AM NOT MARRIED
Security Guard: Yes you are married.
ME: I AM NOT MARRIED
Nurse: Well then maybe you
Me: But maybe not…
Nurse. Hmmm
Me: What about Charlie? He’s a nice guy. He goes to church.
Nurse: No. No Filipinos. Too small. She wants someone like you. Someone huge.
Etc etc etc. Another day. Another ego shattering.
At first I thought she wanted me to ask around fellow volunteers here. But it slowly dawned on me that she thought I might have a single friend back home that would I could simply call and he’d say, sure bring her over.
Female volunteers here , in particular, seem to get several marriage proposals a week. They are serious too. I mean I don’t suppose they really think they must have a chance but probably figure it’s worth asking just in case.
My German friend Niels recently got a piece of paper with a phone number pressed into his hand by a girl as he was leaving a taxi. Another colleague got approached by a Cameroonian girl who tried to impress him with the documentation from a recent test that showed she was not HIV positive.
I’m also a little worried, seeing as the nurses obviously thought I was married, and now they know I am not – marriage proposals may come thick and fast.
Check out this post for a great marriage proposal story.
Tags: bamenda, cameroon, marriage, wedding
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February 5, 2009 at 9:14 pm
i have a lot to say about this topic. maybe i’ll hold my tongue for now and say more in a blog post/essay i am working on for my blog. this is by far the most interesting topic i can think of. it brings out so many dynamics. the dynamics between men and women but also the dynamics between rich and poor and between foreigners and locals. it is a veritable Pandora’s box. and i can’t wait to be part of the conversation.
i am curious though. why did the nurse insist that you are married? is it that she can’t imagine a man your age being single? or is it that she wants you to be married so she can skip over you and see if there are any eligible bachelors out there in Newcastle that you can recommend to her? either way, i am dying for more info on this.
also, is a whiteman husband seen as better in some ways because maybe women anticipate more freedoms from marriage to one than they’d have say if they were married to a Cameroonian man? but then i recall the VSO volunteer marrying a Cameroonian up north and heading to Canada with him once her service is over. so i suspect, as you pointed out, Cameroonian men may want white women as wives, too.
when you think about it, though, isn’t marriage mostly a practical arrangement between two people and between their families? Ask most people why they marry and they will give you the standard “we were in love” story but then dig deeper and you’ll find that they married for very practical reasons that are so numerous e.g. we were older and ready for marriage, we wanted kids, we wanted to put our finances together, we got a tax cut on our mortgage if we were officially married, our families didn’t like us living together, we’d been dating a long time and needed to take the next step, all our friends were marrying and having kids and we wanted what they had, we had the same interests and goals and made a good team, it made sense to marry him cuz wanted to marry a man with a good heart who would not beat me, it made sense to marry hr cuz i always wanted a woman who could cook up a good curry with rice topped with samosas or pakoras and mango chutney, we didn’t want to be lonely, we like watching TV documentaries together, he/she totally gets me and understand who i am, he/she is awesome in bed, we needed to escape from our families or dissatisfaction in other realms of our lives, etc. etc. etc.
try it. ask a few of your friends why they married. then sit and wait for them to start listing all the cold, hard facts of why they married. it is never just love.
er, maybe love just isn’t enough, as they say.
more to say, but here is a blog about a peace corps volunteer who left Cameroon with much more than 2 years of experience. yes, maybe his wife gets to move abroad with him, but guess what, he comes out the winner because he gets to have this amazing bride who probably cooks for him and pampers him to death. I firmly believe that most Cameroonian women rock! so, this note to all you whitemen (applies to whitewomen as well), you may think you are great catches, but Africans can be sweet deals, too. just make sure love is at the heart of things, for you and for the one you marry, should you find him or her.
that said, i give you the happy and beautiful Elisa and Richard. wishing them much happiness. http://ande2413.livejournal.com/
February 5, 2009 at 9:19 pm
You didn’t tell her you’re saving yourself for me, no?
February 6, 2009 at 8:34 am
Two wives? Why not? Could be the solution to Bamenda blues?
February 6, 2009 at 9:21 am
hope u’ll stay on for your 2nd year. will u be in b’da this summer? if so, sister rose it will be. or dreamland. just so i can see those famous restaurants with my own two eyes.
February 6, 2009 at 12:04 pm
BB – just wrote about my second year as your were typing your question. Truth is – I don’t know but I am leaning towards heading off. But things change.
I will certainly be here this summer. Don’t get too excited by the prospect of either restaurant. Certainly not Dreamland – but then again it is the only resaurant I know where the staff are always very friendly and happy to see me.
As regards marrying whiteman – I think it is security. I think people think practicality here first and romance second. I also think that so many people want to get out of Cameroon that it’s an easy way.
Of the rest – I think for volunteers, as I have written before it is hard to get through this experience without having someone. The situation dictates that is likely to be a Cameroonian. I think it is then very hard to simply leave someone after two years and walk away.
But I guess we shouldn’t discount LOVE and these marriages actually having a real future. I recently met an older Swiss lady and her Cameroonian husband. They lasted.
As regards me being already married – I guess it might simply be a misunderstanding but perhaps it is an age thing. Really not sure.
Jen – ah if only you were here.
Dee – I don’t have the first one yet.
June 9, 2009 at 11:17 am
You are absolutely right that one can’t discount love. I am yet another living proof of this. I am a white man married to a cameroonian woman from Bamenda for 4 years now and i am very happy. We are going to visit Bamenda this fall/autumn. Please keep on writing. You’ve got one more reader
June 22, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Please do keep writing. I love reading it. I’m in Hawai’i and planning on marrying my Cameroonian man as soon as we get all our facts straight with immigration and all that. Can anyone advise me on the quickest and easiest route? I wish it didn’t have to be so difficult to just be with who you love….
Aloha,
Paula