My African Husband

Foreign men love American girls.  I know this is a bit of a generalization, but it's something I have experienced over and over again with Mexican men, French men, Asian men, German men, Indian men, Norwegian men... and, most recently, Ghanaian men.

I recently returned from a mission trip to Ghana, and one thing I noticed was how enamored the people were of our light skin, American accents, and especially of those of us girls who have blonde hair.

One day I was in the marketplace in Tamale, the city where we were staying, when a man who owned one of the shops asked me my name and where I was from.

"It was very nice to meet you, Abby," he said.  "You should come back to my shop sometime; I would love to see you."

"Yeah!"  I said.  Yeah right.

The next day my brother and Tomi, another girl who came on the trip to Ghana, were walking down the main road in Tamale a man stopped them.  It was the same man from the day before, and he had recognized my brother.  I guess it makes sense; it is probably pretty rare to see a 6'6" white man in Ghana.

"Where is the girl you were with yesterday?" he asked Syd.  "Debbie?  I think her name was Debbie?"

"Oh," said Tomi.  "Abby?"

"Yes, Abby!"

"That's his sister," she said, pointing to Syd.

"Oh!" the man said to Syd.  "I want to be your brother!"

The rest of their conversation consisted of the man trying to convince Syd to bring me by his shop, as he intended to marry me.  He offered to give Syd things in exchange for bringing me to him.

Finally Syd agreed so that the man would stop pestering him.  "Okay, I will bring her to your shop tomorrow."

"But what time?"

"What time do you get there?  8 or 9?  Okay, I will bring her at 10."

Great, my brother sold me to a Ghanaian.  He doesn't even know what the man offered him; he says he couldn't understand.

"Okay," the man said.  "And if she doesn't come, I'll know the answer was 'no'."

Who knows what that man was thinking the next day when I didn't show up.  Perhaps he had already moved on to the next blonde tourist.  Or maybe I still have a husband just waiting for me in his little shop in Tamale, Ghana.