All You Need is Love

“After that trip, you’ll have enough stories to write for a year!” a friend joked as I told her of my plans to take the people who work for me and their families on their first safari. I guess she’s right; if you pack 4 adults and 3 children under the age of 7 (6 Ugandans + 1 muzungu; 6 completely inexperienced travelers); 2 full and 2 half English speakers (with a total of 3 first languages); 2 days’ worth of food; 1 tent; 1 headlamp; 1 strobe light; and a leaking kerosene stove into a 5-seater RAV4 destined for a distant game park, cultural chaos is bound to ensue…. and ensue it did. Alas, the first of (likely) many intercultural musings from the trip.

Cultural intersection #1, in honor of Valentine’s Day:

I occasionally lament playing the role of bachelorette, the never ending search through the muck of leftover men…or perhaps undiscovered gems (so I like to believe). I still maintain an utterly idealistic picture of a man who will whisk me off my feet and cling to the hope that one day, I will “just know he’s the one.” As I wait/date/search, it is easy to bemoan the required effort, to loathe the disappointments that accompany such romantic notions.

Over a shared flask of Waragi our first night, I discovered some of my travel companions took a vastly different approach towards spouse-hunting. Three years ago, my gardener, Gracious, informed his village he would be returning home to choose a wife for his 30^th birthday. Several women appealed for consideration. Gracious returned to his home village, met his (present) wife--once, talked with her on the phone-- twice, asked for her consent to marry-- was approved, and held a wedding just one week later. Only a month after their wedding, Gracious’ 19-year-old bride was pregnant with their first child.

In the U.S. it takes engaged couples longer to settle on a florist than it took Gracious and his wife to meet, marry, and reproduce. Through my western lens, this approach towards marriage is both foreign and slightly unsettling. And yet, as I attempt to extricate my cultural biases, I am struck by the problems that such an approach eliminates (think: a limited number of awkward first dates; far less psychoanalysis of compatibility; an absence of breakups; no pangs over flirtatious text message phrasing…). At the base of it, there is something oddly romantic about the faith a couple (that know next to nothing about each other) put in the construct of marriage, in the idea of fostered love, commitment, and family.

I still gravitate towards Westernized conceptions of love. Yet, as Valentine’s Day rolls around (and I am just as single as ever), I can’t help but chuckle at the idea of an announcement in the San Jose Mercury proclaiming my intent to marry. A line-up of men to choose from might not be so bad!