Charles*, a 30-something Tanzanian engineer living in the United States, explains, "I am a traditional man who was looking for a wife who shared my values. I dated women here [in America] but was unimpressed; I found that most Tanzanian women were Tanzanian in name only. They were looking for a man who was a ‘total package’—at the time I was a student who was working my way up; I couldn’t offer the world to them at the time, but I knew it was only a matter of time before I was established." Frustrated with his dating experiences in America, Charles spent a month in Tanzania, looking for a woman to become his wife. With the assistance of his extended family and childhood friends, Charles found a woman he was happy to marry after a six month long distance courtship. As unusual as Charles’s courtship rituals seem, Charles is not alone. Fatima, a Somali mother of two twenty-something sons who are studying in America, openly discourages her sons from getting attached to girls who have not been raised in Somalia. "I tell them that they can date who they want, but it can never be serious. When they are ready to marry, I will take them home [to Somalia] to find their wives.
