On East African Women

This is an anecdote to my past mentioning of Eddie and Olivier.  This is insight into the women of Rwanda and East Africa in general.  This is a ray of hope for me. 

We sat at the beach of Serena Lodge in Gisenyi and a group of young, beautiful Rwandan women, obviously on a weekend trip up from Kigali, came sauntering towards the water’s edge.  Since Africans have no qualms about staring, especially at things they’re interested in, like beautiful women and mzungus, Eddie watched them.  Out of the corner of my eye I observed him him.  He spent several moments eyeing them and then came back to the conversation the rest of us were having seemingly unchanged.  I found this curious.  Usually I watch watching beautiful women pass by and then they continue to steal unsuccessfully secretive second glances or their brow furrows like they’re pondering the source of a rainbow.  Eddie did neither of these but instead seemed to relinquish all thoughts of the women the minute his eyes left them. 

Ever the glutton for personal and possibly inappropriate enquiries, I asked him in Swahili what he thought of them.  In true and pointed honesty, he said they were beautiful.  I asked him why he shouldn’t go talk to them.  He replied that there’s more to a woman than her looks- that the conversations she can have, her handling of money and contributions to the relationship in multiple ways, her motherly instincts, and her emotional displays were more important than looks.  I was shocked.  All of this was coming from a seventeen-year-old boy surrounded on a daily basis by the most beautiful women I’d ever seen.  I was slightly impressed but still skeptical.

Whatever disbelief I had vanished when the following night Olivier reiterated what Eddie had said.  We had been chatting about his family and somehow he transgressed on to the reasons for his single status.  Apparently there is a stereotype in East Africa that many women are dishonest, adulterers, and love to spend their men’s money.  Almost in response to this, we were all startled by a breath snatching, heart quickening, hand trembling scream from behind the bar.  We jumped.  We heard increased levels of inaudible clamour but once, then twice we picked out the word ‘mzungu.’  My mind immediately thought the worst had happened- that mzungu had been harmed.  Simultaneously Olivier, Quena and I leaped from our seats and went scurrying around the building.  I saw a car.  I saw people.  I saw the woman wailing and a few men trying to calm her.  I thought maybe someone had been hit whom I couldn’t see. 

Olivier turned to us with a grave but relieved look on his face and just said ‘drunkards.’ 

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“She’s drunk.”

“That’s it?”

Olivier escorted us back around to our seats and explained to us what had happened.  Her man had expected her of cheating, had brought her to a bar where he encouraged her to get intoxicated, and then rang the truth from her.  He then told her that she wasn’t going home with him, that she could call the other man that she had so desperately needed.  So, slightly different from how I would have handled the situation, she broadcasted to the entire world her wrongdoings by piercing the night with her screams.  When I cheat on someone, I want everyone to know too.  I’ve never seen anything like that, but it definitely drove home Eddie and Olivier’s point.

So, aesthetically beautiful women are not hard to find.  Finding inward beauty is like searching for the only diamond in an expanse of hot, distorted, molten lava.  Olivier and Eddie had told me almost word for word the same thing about Rwandanese women, what they were looking for, and then both flattered me by hinting htat they were looking for someone with characteristics similar to my own.  There is hope for me yet.

I left Kigali for a day in Dubai, a layover in Malaysia, and am now in Australia.  Along the way I observed the faces, demeanors, and behaviors of African, Middle Eastern, South Pacific, Caucasian men, Asian.  I more or less found them attractive in that order.  Maybe it’s my recent familiarity development with African men that I find so attractive, but I don’t think so.  I’ve always had jungle fever.  I recall an embarrassing moment when I was about ten or eleven years old.  I was standing in our living room, lips squished hard to the TV screen where the African American actor’s face from Save the Last Dance had been put on pause.  My mother giggled in the background as I confidently informed her that I would undoubtedly marry a black man some day.  Today, I’m open to any love that comes along, but I have a slight inkling I wouldn’t find enough excitement in the exoticisms of a city-type white boy to last me a lifetime.  Even now among the Australian accents that I once found irresistible I am rolling my eyes when their glances linger or follow me for too long, or I prefer to openly gulp in the half naked and painted young aboriginal didgeridoo players in Sydney Harbor instead of acknowledge the white boy approaches.  Who can say no to a dark man in body paint?  Mind you, I’m nothing special and do occasionally cut white boys some slack, but I think every girl deserves her pick in life.  Why settle for a second rate flavor of ice cream if you can have your favorite?  On the other hand, it is also nice to sometimes have variety, as a constant reminder to yourself that you do have a favorite and it is a special reward.  For this reason, I’m keeping my options open.  Having the world pick my next flavor is always too exciting of an adventure to resist.