It's that moment that so many girls dream of their whole lives. The moment that that one special guys gets down on one knee, takes her left hand, looks her in the eyes and tells her he can't live without her. The proposal. For most people, this happens once maybe twice in a lifetime. For girls serving in many PC countries, this is a common occurrence. This is my story of proposals received while serving as a PCV.
It first started in Albania. Not long after arriving in Albania, my host family and other people in the community started mentioning their single sons, cousins, nephews and brothers. Almost every other female PCV in Albania also noticed this increased level of attention within their community. It wasn't long before the 'proposals' started coming in. I started collecting pieces of paper that would be handed to me with phone numbers on them. Sometimes while I was sitting in my office, random men would come looking for me to see if I wanted to go for coffee. "Do I know you?" I would ask and they would reply something like, "Yes, I'm *insert name here*'s cousins wifes brother-in-laws nephew." When PCV's got together it would always be a fun topic to compare recent proposals.
Since arriving in Morocco, I have received even more proposals. The proposals I have received here have seen a little more serious than those in Albania. One man tried to set me up with his son for about two weeks before I had my tutor step in on my behalf and tell him that I was not interested. Another man tried to convince me to teach him English as an initial reason for meeting me. The most current one, is actually the son of the man who tried to get me to meet his son. He showed up for my adult English class and not knowing who he was, I let him attend. Last night after class (which was not his class but my advanced one), he gave me a book. I told him I did not want it because it was in script and I can't really read script. He said no just keep it until next week. He left and I looked inside the book and there was an envelope. Inside the envelope was the following note:
Now how can a girl say no to a proposal like this? It reminds me junior high when people would send a note saying "Would you go out with me? Circle one: YES NO".
Since most girls will only have one or two proposals in their life, I feel pretty special that I have been proposed to more times than I would like to think about. However, I don't think this will be on the one I'll be accepting. I'm still holding out for the guy that actually speaks the same language as me (fluently), already has US citizenship, has seen me outside of class or other group activities and doesn't live at home with his parents. Maybe I'm being too picky but I figure I still have time to be picky. I haven't hit 30 yet where I have to start talking to my friends who promised me if we were both single at 30 we'd get married.
If any of you ladies reading this have other excellent PC proposal stories, let me hear them! I love a good proposal story before bedtime :)
2 comments:
I was in country (Georgia)for 2 weeks when my PST family had extended relatives visit from Russia. Some overbearing extra hairy aunts gave me the once over, asked me if I was engaged in America and then brought out "Vlad" I barely knew enough of the language to understand what he wanted, then a host sister translated. Yikes! After carefully weighing my options, I politely declined. One week later cousin Georgi came over for dinner, same story follows and again for one more after him. Lesson learned, when I went to my perm host family I was most surely engaged in America ;) I found the best way to convince my host father (who asked why someone would let their soon to be wife go to another country and never came to visit) was that he was deployed in the military. Problem solved. Also its more convincing if you tell them he has loads of money so you won't consider anyone else.
A lot of girls here in Morocco wear fake engagement rings when traveling alone to keep away the creepers. We've found that when we say we're engaged to Americans, they'll respond with "You should marry a Muslim". So now most of us are engaged to 'Mohammed' who lives in either Rabat or Casablanca. In other words, too far to come and visit :) Works almost every time!
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