Fast Forward Marriage

Rhoda: Are you married?”
Rhoda: Are you educated?”
Rhoda: Why do you have earrings?”
Rhoda: Are you Christian?”
Rhoda: What is your phone number?”
Rhoda: I want you to meet my friend. She is a nurse. She is very slim and tall.”

Such were the questions I had to answer from a nurse in a downtown Kumasi clinic while I was waiting for my malaria struck friend to digest his fufu (plaintain and yam) lunch. Suffice to say that chat up lines are a little different to home. The question-poser tends to go straight for the jugular vein. Ghanaians don't see the point of beating round the bush. If you're on the market, then you are a viable candidate for marriage - whether it is for themselves, their cousins or friends.

When I didn't give Rhoda my phone number, a few hours later I received a call from her nurse colleague on my colleague's phone. Rhoda had looked up the medical file of my Italian volunteer colleague, who had attended the same clinic a couple of weeks previous, in order to find out his number and thus be able to ask me again what my number was. What persistence! I must say, I was flattered, but also quite amazed. Such a course of action would receive disciplinary measures, and may be even regarded as a fireable offence at home if a complaint was made.

As a white man living in Ghana, one is unlikely to receive as many proposals of marriage as our white female counterparts. Usually, women may even receive the bended knee treatment within a 5 minute conversation. Take last Thursday night near our workplace at Edwenase in Kumasi. While on the phone, sitting beside Dorota, a guy who we had only met once before, and very briefly, tried his best to gain my attention. Dorota intervened and took him some metres away so I could have some privacy. Within 5 more minutes another 3 guys had joined them. It's either a peculiar nosiness, genuine inquisitiveness or impossibility to resist the possibility of meeting an Obroni (white person, European), a potential partner, that compels many to win our attention or friendship.

I would be interested in hearing any other Obroni, Muzungu, Blanc or white persons accounts as to how many proposals they received in their travels. I never realised I was such viable marriage material before I cam here!