I should say yes?

The filler episode

Between the different coloured flags, the red sometimes orange but rarely ever green flags, and trying to navigate your way through bread crumbing and the all time favourite past-time of the male sex - ghosting; finding love during and post the pandemic is truly the ingredient of a dystopian psychological er…thriller? If the previous sentence made little sense to you then count yourself lucky for being in a loving enduring relationship without need to Google "what does it mean if she takes two days to respond to my texts but is great in person" or maybe you just haven't found yourself on the nauseating side of relationship tiktok or twi.. erm, X.

Dating in the 2000s is a minefield.

So can you really blame a girl if she seriously considers saying yes to the many proposals she receives whilst travelling through remote and unknown parts of Africa? 

These proposals, marriage proposals, are usually in jest but once so often the proposer means business. 

This thing of proposals is so prevalent that a common tip for solo female travellers, usually those visiting countries outside of the Western bubble, is to wear a wedding band to deter creepy men, well just men, whose idea of boundaries and personal space is a little different from what you would except say in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Of course, professing your undying love to a woman you just met and proposing marriage is an immediate red flag, it's called love bombing. But! These men won't bread crumb you, they won't ghost you, they just want to take you home to their family, teach you their language and cook for you. They don't care about your job or any of that serious stuff or the fact that you might be a serial killer, they just want you to be their wife.

Perhaps there is a deep dive to be done on why I only received two marriage proposals in Cape Town (both from migrant uber drivers) compared to the daily occurrences in Mozambique but that would have to wait. 

Rather, now I ponder on what if I said yes to the waiter that let me go away without paying for my food on trust that I would return with the cash after their card machine failed to process my Mastercard debit card. He said he was the best cook in town and his colleagues vouched for him. That was enough reason, according to them, to say yes to his marriage propsal. We would live by the beach, he would teach me piTonga and I maybe wouldn't need to work because his income from the restaurant would be enough… ha!

But, amongst all the proposals was a diamond in the rough. A day after arriving in Tofo, hours after my encounter with my admirer at the restaurant, my taxi driver sent me a text with a business proposal. Together, he and I would set up a private shuttle business like the one I used for the 7hr road journey from Maputo to Tofo. With just $20k, I would buy the minibus and he would drive. We would make a killing.

Sigh, what is the equivalent of love bombing in business? Now that is one glaring red flag.

Whatever is in the air in these parts of the world, it surely gives the illusion that love and business is a simple affair. That succes in both is guaranteed if only one is willing.

But people like you and me won't take that. We must make a sport of it. Look for the flags, analyse the response patterns, assess the market and so on and so forth. Meanwhile, our age mates in a remote seaside village in Mozambique are happily married and directors of thriving busineses.

What really is the worst that could happen? Surely an appearance on 90 Day Fiancé is good for exposure and can lead to opportunities. 

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Real time update: I thought this week, following Zimbabwes elections, would bring time to rest and reflect but rather it has brought about… confusion. The word really is “uncertainty” but its a thin line between the two.

In present time I am compiling unending lists; lists of people that did x, lists of people that did y and the most important, lists of incidences of voter suppression, intimidation and violence before and during election day. Just today I assisted people signing affidavits saying what happened to them or what they observed during the election period. So yet again my time to think, to read and to create is eaten up by the business of politicking and the slow Internet speeds that persist in Zimbabwe’s Second Republic (also the reason for the lack of visuals today).