The Apple of My Eye

Relationships between men and women are so fascinating to me. Love is an interesting concept that expands across cultures, but its expression varies.  In Tanzania, affection between men and women is supposed to be kept behind closed doors.  So often times you will see couples maintain the distance of strangers.  I have not seen public displays of affection amongst Tanzanians here.  Well let me be clearer, I have not seen public displays of affection between members of the opposite sex.  It is perfectly normal for two men to walk down the street holding hands- that is considered a sign of friendship.  I think I will have to wait for another day to talk about homophobia in Tanzania and how the behavior associated with gay men in America is a cultural norm here….it’s fascinating really. The absurdity of it all intrigues me.   But I am digressing…

Yesterday I was having a conversation with one of my male Tanzanian friends and he gave me some insight into the world of dating here.  I was eating an apple (a luxury item I treated myself to) and he explained to me that usually if a man gives a woman an apple, it means he wants her to be his girlfriend.  The reverse is also true so needless to say I was a little embarrassed after I offered him an apple.  So the phrase “the apple of my eye” quickly had a whole new meaning.  He was not sure why apples were associated with love and romance.  Perhaps it’s because apples are sweet and very expensive here.  In this discussion I also learned that love has a very different meaning to Tanzanian men.   Since I have lived in this country, I have had several marriage proposals and declarations of love.  I thought this was odd because generally it takes American men more than 10 seconds to love a woman.  I am not saying I don’t believe in love at first site, but I think it’s an exceptional thing and here it has become the norm.  I was trying to explain that love takes time and that in America, we do not say “I love you” right away or fall in love with someone as soon as we see them.  Then he explained how famous soccer players would find a woman they loved in each city so it’s similar.  Finally it dawned on me that for many Tanzanian men, “I love you” means “I want to have sex with you.” I explained that these famous soccer players did not love these women.  They just found them attractive and had sex with them. So ladies, if you travel to Africa and a Tanzanian man tells you he loves you after knowing you for only a short period of time, be very skeptical!!!

I am considered very beautiful by Tanzanian standards, and have had some problems with unwanted attention since I have been in country.  I decided to buy a ring and claim to have a fiancé in America as a result. This was a great decision!  I already wrote about how I am not domestic and would fail as a Tanzanian housewife, but recently I have realized that I would fail as a Tanzanian girlfriend.  I am very happy I have a “relationship” back at home because I don’t think I could date a Tanzanian man.  Clearly I am far too progressive for this patriarchal society.  Most of my fellow teachers are men, and you should have seen their faces today when I said men in America cooked (even ones with wives and daughters!).   I think their reaction would have been similar if I told them men were breast feeding babies in America.   Maybe I will get used to it over time, but I don’t like the way women are treated here.  For example, a group of students from a nearby university were doing their internship teaching at our school for one month.  Four of them lived in a house very close to mine (one girl and three boys).  It surprised me that the female student did all the cooking and cleaning for the house.  She was not the mother, sister, girlfriend, or wife of any of these guys but she did all of the household chores simply because she was a woman.  And they expected her to do these things so very few thank yous were exchanged.  I tried to put this in an American context….imagine a group of college students living together and the girl being expected to do all the cooking, cleaning, etc. for the entire house.  That is a big cultural adjustment for me.  I am very happy to be living alone in my own house without a man to cater to!