On November 7, 2007, I got an email from a man I had never met before.
It began:
Dear wife to be, Glenna Gordon, It is in the name of Jesus Christ, I am writing to you this message in order to let you know about my proposal wish just to you.
And that was the beginning of my relationship with Joseph Mozi (not his real name), who likes reading but not swimming, and thought of our imminent marriage as “DURATION OF PROCESS: Is from now after each other agreement. No time to waste for nothing.”
I’d just reported on Congolese refugees in Uganda and had given my business card to more than one person, which means that lots of people in Congo have my email address. I did think it was strange that he referred to “Partner Donor Father Robby Gordon,” since my dad’s name actually is Robby Gordon, though I usually don’t address him as Partner Donor Father.
Then Joseph called me. Twice. I told him to please stop contacting me.
The next email explained,
Is not from confusion I got the contacts and made decision to be in touch with Glenna Gordon, jus be aware I got her isssues from my Partner Donor again as his Heir Son from Father Robby Gordon when I have proposed to Him to get married with one of her daughter. And is Him who sent to me the web site of Glenna, so is from there I got those contacts of Glenna.
My dad lives in Irvine, a suburb in southern California . The next time I spoke to my dad, I asked about Joseph. And it was at this point, Partner Donor Father Robby Gordon revealed that he had not just been emailing with Joesph, they’d been speaking on the phone once or twice a week for at least two months. Joesph had found my dad’s website, where he advertises his services as a financial aid, and had called him. They’d developed a rapport, and according to my dad, he’d mentioned that I live in Uganda and had given Joseph my email address.
I told my dad to never give any strangers my contact information. Ever. This may seem obvious to some, but my dad still wears the stonewashed jeans he purchased in 1983 on vacation in Jamaica, and hasn’t really moved ahead in time since then. I’m not sure email and stonewash have ever existed together in the same room, besides in my father’s house.
Eventually, Joseph’s inquires thinned to a non-existent trickle. Then last Sunday night, eleven months after our initial emails, he sent me a text message:
glenna, greetings please call me in five min for is not mine and I need to move in 20 min. love joseph.
Having forgotten about my engagement to a Congolese man I had never met, it took me a minute to connect the dots among Kinshasa, Irvine, and Kampala. But I did. And after thinking about it, I decided not to return Joseph’s call.
I asked my dad about the situation again recently, asked if he had said anything that might give Joseph the impression that we were to be married.
“Maybe I did give it. I don’t remember. I remember giving him your email,” my dad said. In the beginning, Partner Donor Father Robby Gordon explained, Joseph seemed serious and interesting. Not like those scam artists from Nigeria. My dad thought Joseph was offering him a job in Congo and he’d like to go, he thought, to be near me.
In a lot of parts of the world, if a man gives out his daughter’s name, that might be permission to marry. Though in most parts of the world, if it’s an email address, that rule no longer applies.
The Partner Donor Father Robby Gordon explained that his website also brought him job offers from other places, for example Malaysia, so Partner Donor Father Robby Gordon just thought of this as another in a string of exotic opportunities granted to him by www.monetarystress.com.
Joseph’s emails did discuss the budget for his organization Earth Neighbour Heart Ministry, but this seemed less like an email exchange about the money and more about the marriage. Or maybe just about the money that would come with the marriage.
Joseph actually thought we were to be married and seemed hurt when I didn’t answer his emails and didn’t seem ready to pack it all up in Kampala and move to Kinsasha where he, Heir Son, and me, Wife to Be, along with perhaps Patron Donor Father Robby Gordon, could all live happily and work for World Neighbor Love Mission and Ministry.
The next email came Monday morning and was more of the same. On the bottom of the email there was a list of people that this email was theoretically CC’ed to, a selection of which includes: National Basketball Association, DFID, Bill and Melinda Gates (I wonder if they met via email?), USA Whitehouse, and Monetary Stress Father Robby Gordon.
I wondered about the man in Congo, who I had never met, who had, for more than a year, assumed we were engaged. Had he printed out the small photos of me on my blog and carried them around and showed them to friends and relatives? Was he saving up for a bride price of several cows and the transportation necessary to send them to Irvine, California? Or was he, despite his dislike for both lies and delay, sitting around and waiting for Patron Donor Father Robby Gordon to finally knock some sense into his Wife To Be?
On October 12 of this year, Joseph sent me an e-vite to the online networking site Plaxo. Maybe he’s given up on marriage and will settle for Plaxo, but maybe I’ll hear from him next year.
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