GOOD FOR MARRIAGE
When I was sixteen, I was in love with a guy named David. He was very good-looking, and went to university, and was smart, but his life was very complicated. And he drank. His two parents were dead and he was raised by his paternal aunt. His financial situation was very bad. Sometimes I think I should have waited for him. One of the reasons I lost hope was because his family wouldn’t agree for me to marry him since I had no family.
I was seventeen in Khartoum when I met my man, Akaich. He was Dinka like me. After I finished middle school, I went to high school. I went to a special school called Agrazella for IDPs from the South, because our Arabic is different fro the other students’. I met another girlfriend in the new school named Nimera. Nimera’s family is well off, and her father had his own workshop where they made metalwork and artwork; they had a big house with many rooms. The man I’m married to is Nimera’s uncle. Through Nimera, he married me.
I was in Nimera’s kitchen and I was helping her cook. It was a big household. Nimera’s father had five wives; each of his women had many children, and I was helping to cook for all of them. Akaich saw me and was pleased by me. Dinka men like women who are hard workers, and he saw me as a hard worker and liked me. He told Nimera, “I like this woman and I want to marry her.” He said that to Nimera the day after he first saw me. He said she is good-looking and hardworking, and I like her. And that was it.
For the Dinka, the most important thing is that the woman is hardworking. If she is hardworking, knows her responsibilties, and can keep the family under control and keep things going according to the norms and the traditions, she is good for marriage. Beauty and height are good as well, but they are extras.
When Nimera told me the proposal, I thought she wasn’t serious. I said, “No, because he looks old.” He was about forty at the time and I was seventeen. I said, “I don’t want him. ” But something hapened that made me marry this man: I wasn’t able to pay the expenses for my schooling. Akaich started giving me money, with no relationship actually happening, just as Nimera’s friend. He bought me a uniform for the high school and gave me money to buy things. After two years, he asked me again to marry him. And I told him, “Well, I cannot say anything. I will ask Angelina’s mom.” She acted as my mom and invited Akaich to talk to her. Akaich went to Angelina’s mom and he asked for my hand in marriage, and they agreed and I married him.
I was not very happy. I did not love this man. He was a liar. I had my conditions for marriage. I wanted to finish my high schol education and go to university. He promised me he would support me. But after I got married, he said no more schooling and no more going to school and no more education. He used to beat me up and fight me over it. He used to hurt me, but he didn’t break any bones. When we grind garlic, we use something with an iron handle to smash it, and he hit me with it in the leg and caused problems with my knee. Sometimes when I would walk, my knee would pop out, but now I’m better.
