Not so engaging…

The response to telling people I’m engaged is very different out here to that of friends and family back home. Every time I tell a Liberian or one of my other African colleagues, they are pleased for me but immediately start giving me advice on how to hang on to Josh until we get married and I’ve legally entrapped him – not to eat too much, work hard not to get fat or thin, not to talk to him by phone from out here too much or too little, in fact probably best not to work overseas at all in case he meets someone else and dumps me before the wedding… all highly encouraging…!

Since I’m sure of the strength of our relationship and that it is built on mutual respect and commitment, this is all quite diverting (especially the misunderstanding with one of my Liberian colleagues when I said I hoped to get married next summer and he sprang to reassure me that he was almost certain that if I didn’t change too much and was very careful, then Josh would probably still be around next summer…), but it worries me that this is the first reaction of my African brothers. How many women in Liberia, but also across the continent, instead of feeling security from a concrete declaration of intent to marry are still unsure of where they stand, knowing that engagement isn’t enough and that they need somehow to trap their partner into further commitment? Sad…