Marriage Proposal

Being a white female in East Africa, I have heard my fair share of pick up lines in the past few months. And if 100 shillings for every time I’ve heard “I love you” I would be verging on rich. Sometimes I get annoyed by all of this, because really who wants to hear this when you’re walking down the road to eat dinner. But sometimes these encounters make for really good stories, like now. We reached a whole new level of affection on Christmas Eve, when I was sitting in the front seat of a Matatu heading to the grocery store. We were stopped, so obviously this would be the right time for a man to stick his head in the window to strike up a conversation. What began like any other normal conversation quickly turned when he introduced himself as “Sharobalo,” which might work for other wazungu, however we are well aware of the meaning: cool kid meets punk meets well-dressed meets somewhat cocky male. Right, that’s certainly not your name sir, but that would certainly describe you well.  As if this wasn’t enough, the conversation took a drastic turn when I said I was a math teacher in Tanzania. He was quite impressed that I was a mathematician, and informed me that although he was very bad at mathematics in school, he did very well in all the other subjects. This was immediately followed by the craziest thing I’ve ever heard…are you ready for this??

“I had a dream one day that I would marry a mathematician. Will you marry me?”

 ……. Umm no I don’t think so, but thank you for asking Mr. Sharobalo. ”But you are a beautiful girl, what do you say? It’s really my dream. We would compliment each other well, and you would make me so happy”… At this point the whole bus was laughing, the bus driver included because it was probably the most ridiculous conversation he’s heard in a while. And while I wasn’t in the mood to be talking about marriage, I was also dying of laughter because it was the most absurd request/pick up line/marriage proposal I’ve ever heard. 

Never a dull moment.