Paintings in exchange for an American wife…

So I met a painter through a friend. I am considering commissioning someone to paint a mural on one of my walls (with money, I’m discovering, I don’t have). This painter turned out to be a pretty good painter. I told him I loved his work, but would have to think about the mural. That I had a lot of things to buy and not much money and that was the last priority. One day he showed up at my door. I could not remember who he was. He showed me an official paper authorizing a cooperative in a little douar close to Agdz. Then he talked about a French woman that worked there. I thought maybe he wanted me to work with the assocation. Then I thought he wanted to introduce me to the French lady. Then I thought he wanted me to introduce him to the French lady. Then he informed me that he had painted two paintings for me. In return, he wanted me to help him. I finally realized with whom I was speaking. I invited him up briefly to look at my walls, but he again repeated that he already had to paintings ready to bring me but wanted my help. He wanted to find a woman. He wanted me to help him find a woman. Then next day he returned with his wishes written out in English so I would understand mezyena. The paper said: “I want you to help me. I want to marry on of your friends. I will always live with her. I want to move to America. I do not want to live in Agdz.” … or something along those lines. I choked back a laugh and thought quickly (as I knew he had two paintings waiting for me that I very much wanted). I cleared my throat: “Ok, look, most of my friends are married, but I can show you a place on the Internet where you can meet women. I can also help you set up an email account and show you a place called Ebay where you can sell your paintings. He agreed. He brought me not two but three beautiful paintings.

Today was the third session at the Internet café. The night before I had received several texts from him saying that he was in love with me and needed me and couldn’t wait to see me, and could he come over in the morning? I just ignored the texts. When he arrived at the appointed hour today, we walked along and he said, “Did you get a message from me?” “Yes, I got a message from you, and I want you never to send me messages like that again. I want to help you, that is all. Nothing more, okay?” “Yes, yes, safi, okay, never again, you will just help me, okay.”

We spent an hour opening and closing his new hotmail account after having shown him how to do it on two other occasions and him all the while writing down each step repeatedly (i.e. double click on “Internet Explorer”, click on top of the words “about:blank”, type www.hotmail.com” etc…). I took him through much of the match.com registration, but when I would ask him questions about his interests like books or music, he said, “How..? I like music.” “Yes, but what kind of music?” “Uhmm, yes, I like music. Music is good.” (In arabic, of course.) So, I just skipped most of the questions. The only thing he had an opinion on was that the woman should be from America or Europe, have white skin and be a Christian, not a Muslim. Everything else did not matter. I had tried to go to Arabic sites so he could read them, but that inherently meant Muslims, not Christians. I realized match.com charged a fee. I found another site with free online dating services. I registered him again. Finally I brought up a few profiles of women for him. He couldn’t read or understand a thing. I realized that this was simply an impossible task.

I took him outside, as we were attracting too much attention from others in the cyber café. Look, if you cannot understand any English, but insist on doing this in English and insist on an American, there is no way to make this work. You cannot communicate with a girl, let alone know how to go on the Internet and find the dating site again. “No, no, it is all to much work for me, I want you to find a woman for me.” “What!?” I cannot do that. You have to talk with a girl and get to know her if you want to marry her.” “No, no, this is too much time for me, I just want you to email a girl for me so I can marry her.” It all seemed so simple in his mind: just email a strange girl in America and just tell her that a little Moroccan guy who cannot speak English wants to get married and move to America. I told him that was not possible. I could help him learn how to use email (that itself, I was discovering was a monumental task), help him learn how to use the Internet, and help him learn how to sell his beautiful artwork online. “Oh, none of that is important,” he said. “I just want you to find me a woman in America.” “I’m sorry, that I cannot do.” He said his paintings would never sell online, that it would take a year or two, and it wasn’t important. I said that it might work, it might not, but why not try? I finally convinced him to allow me to try to sell the fourth painting he had just brought me that morning on Ebay as an experiment. He agreed. He had to do nothing. If it work, I would bring him the proceeds, if it didn’t, the painting was mine. He agreed. So, I’ve got a fun little project to work on now.