Elusive search for a marriage partner

By Sophie Nakimare

It was 2001, when I packed up my bags and headed to the so called land of opportunities. I was in my early 20s and I was certainly eating life with a big spoon. I had just graduated from Nairobi University in Kenya the previous year and landed a lucrative job. I was ready to explore new opportunities abroad, and a few friends convinced me that winning a green card to America would give me just that.

Dan, my live-in boyfriend for a long time proposed a few weeks before I got a letter from Kentucky Consular Office telling me that I had worn a green card, but I turned him proposal down. In fact, the green card letter complicated our relationship further. Every day after work, my girlfriends and I convened at Java Coffee House, our favorite joint, to discuss Dan’s intentions. They convinced me that Dan was only after my green card, and that he would dump me for a mzungu on arrival to the US. I started making a million excuses and somehow cut Dan out of my life without his knowledge. Dan pleaded with me to rethink our relationship. Dan had helped pay part of my college fees, and told me several times that he was ready to do anything for us to be together. He even started applying for doctoral programs in the US just to be with me. Dan was ready to quit his job at KEMRI to start a family with me. Despite the sacrifices Dan was willing to make, I refused to take him seriously. After a lot of soul-searching, I came to the conclusion that Dan would be a nuisance once I arrive in my new country. I had been with Dan for four years, and I thought he was too predictable for life and was no longer fun to be around. You see Dan is this kind of a guy who never minces words. He takes pride in being dependable. He is very honest, always puts his woman first. Dan’s life always revolves around his lady. He is self-less and can go without lunch for a whole month just to buy his woman the Kshs 40,000 cell phone that she wants. As a young woman, I found Dan boring. I wanted to be with somebody a bit mysterious, and that somebody was in America.

Dan and I went through an emotional rollercoaster for several months after I returned my green card forms. He suggested counseling and even asked an elderly couple from church to talk to me. I was very difficult to handle and didn’t say a word during the so called counseling sessions. Finally, I went to the American Embassy for my green card interview in August and got the clearance to travel to America.

Dan took leave during my final week in Kenya and took me to Lamu for a heart-to-heart chat, but I was too fixated on my travel plans to listen to him. The d-day finally came, and Dan canceled a work trip to Tanzania just to bid me farewell. That evening Dan really cried. For a minute I was moved, but as soon as I boarded my plane, I said to myself, “To hell with Dan. He will be alright.”

Dan kept in touch with me every day after that. He stayed in the office late to chat with me on MSN messenger. But I was very cold and didn’t care much about his feelings. In Washington D.C, where I stayed, we partied every weekend with my new girlfriends. Within six months, I had met Bob, a Kenyan guy who made me feel as if I were everything he had been waiting for in this world. I was having an affair, but Dan still had all his hopes in me. That summer, Dan announced his intentions to travel to the US to visit his queen. He requested me to send him an invitation letter, but I gave him a million excuses instead. An old schoolmate, who lived in New York finally, sent him one, and he secured a visa to travel to the US.

A few days before Dan traveled to the US; I called him and announced to him that I was in love with someone else. I also sent him a follow-up email to reiterate my point. He asked me several times if that’s what I wanted and as painful as it was, he let me go. I never heard from Dan again. I moved in with Bob shortly after that.

The months that followed were full of bliss, but that Christmas things changed. Bob told me one evening that he had impregnated a white girl and that he was going to marry her because he was running out of status and needed to get his residency papers. He moved out the next day and changed his phone number.

What! Am I dreaming or what! I was confused. As bitter as it was, Bob was gone and never wanted to hear from me again. His friends remained tight-lipped about his relationship, and refused to return my calls. How could this happen to me? What did I do to deserve this? I cried every day. I missed work for two weeks. I even visited a psychologist, who diagnosed me with depression. I thought about Dan, but I was too embarrassed to call him. It’s been many years since I lost both Dan and Bob. I have dated a few America men, but none of them wanted to marry an African woman. I have relentlessly been searching for a Kenyan man, but the hunt has proved to be an elusive one. I once dated a Kenyan man four years my junior, who turned out to be a jerk. I am now in my 30s and long to settle down, but there is no Kenyan man in sight.

I have spent hundreds of dollars looking for quality Kenyan men on the Internet, but I have never met any quality matches. I now have a PhD and I am financially secured, but I am not happy at all. Do good Kenyan men still exist in Obamaland?