No, I am not engaged or married. At least not in the legal or terribly real sense. I do however have a fake husband, and everyone who knows me in Senegal aside from Peace Corps staff and volunteers believes this to be absolutely true.
My husband and I have been married for three years. We met at University and lived together in Boston in an apartment for a little less than a year, and the rent in our apartment was $200 per month (if you didn't know this was fantasy up until now, that certainly gave it away). He is half black, half white, and most times I let people believe he is half Senegalese. He lives in Linguere and he is very busy, which is why he hasn't visited my village yet. We see each other every couple months when we go to Peace Corps meetings, and once we went on vacation to St. Louis. He is very kind and he doesn't hit children. I don't want him to get a second wife and we talked about it and he doesn't want one either because he loves only me. He misses me very much and calls me almost every night. He buys the phone credit, and if he is in America he calls from a computer. We are waiting to have children because right now we want to work and have babies later when we are ready. Right now he is in America because his mother is just a little sick and she misses him. We spent some of Christmas together and some with our own families and he gave me my ring for Christmas this year. I think in the next month or so he is going to break his leg so that he can't come back to Senegal at all and thus won't have to visit my village.
As you can see, it has become a rather elaborate lie so that I can satisfactorily answer all of the questions people have for me. I admit, sometimes it can be fun to make up stories like this. Overall I've tried hard to create a man who is virtually immune to comments from Senegalese. Whats that, kind sir on the bus? I need a black man who can do me better? Well he is half, so that should be enough for me. A lot of times it can be very instructive- I can talk about birth control with women or spousal communication. Most of the time though I hate that I have to lie to my village and I hate that I have to pretend to be someone I'm not.
Ultimately though, making up a fake husband has been one of the best decisions I could have made here. Quite literally all day long every day I am proposed to, cat-called, and harassed. Sometimes its innocent, sometimes it is extremely vulgar, but it is always constant. The only option that gives me a little relief is to pretend that I have a man who I belong to. Its not that the men harassing me stop because they care about my marriage. They stop because I am someone else's property, much as you wouldn't brand another man's cow.
This isn't about me though. I chose to be here and after another year I will go home. There, I will be subjected to slightly less overt sexism but at least it will be in my own language and people won't expect me to be married after age 16. I wrote this post not so that you would feel bad for me, but that maybe it would get you thinking about how sexism operates in your own society. There are so many things I could write about this topic, but this video says so much more than I ever could. PLEASE watch it, I promise it will change how you think about your life
http://happyplace.someecards.com/29141/oppressed-majority-a-french-short-film-that-reverses-gender-roles
