rasta men

When I first got to Malawi, my coworker would always say to me, "Africa is the home of the rastafarian, my friend." And I would just laugh at him whenever he would talk about wanting to grow dreadlocks and smoke the ganja. Another friend said that "90% of white women want to get with a rasta man." I have no idea where he got his figures from. And another friend said he wanted to grow dreads so that he would have a "50% chance of getting a white woman." When I asked, "Isn't it 90%?", he replied, "NO. It's 90% for real rastas. I am just an ordinary guy who wants dreads." HAHA

A few months ago, I was standing outside a supermarket, waiting for my friend to buy some wooden carvings. And I was talking to one of the sellers, when this man walks over from his table full of carvings. Now, this guy looked like a real rastafarian, complete with the dreads, the braided beard! the clothes, and he reeked of marijuana. So, he was asking my name, what I do. Then he asked me if I was married, and I said, "no, but I have a boyfriend." To which he replied, "Shame! I wanted to be your rasta boyfriend. And I would give you ganja."

Nasty! I do not need some weed smoking man feeding me marijuana. Anyway, I left in a hurry, and would occasionally see him on the streets, but would try not to look that way in case he tried to talk to me again. Until...

A couple weeks ago, I was walking home from town. I heard this man walking behind me, and I could hear what sounded like mutterings...so I thought he was just talking to himself. After I had walked about 500 metres down the street, I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see the rasta man! He told me that he had called out for me when he saw me pass by (fyi: making the *tsk tsk* sound in Malawi may get the attention of some people, but not me), and he ran up to catch to me. He saw me walking alone and thought I had no friends and so wanted to keep me company. "I have many friends," I replied, quite indignant at that comment. And he replied, "yes, but, when you see something good, you want to get it. And you're that something good." What the heck! And then he asked to see my house and where I lived! Yeah right! Thank goodness he got the message that I wasn't about to show him anything (maybe it was the frostiness coming from my glare?), but if he had tried to follow me home, I would have had no reservations about sterilising him with a kick to the nuts.