Issue: 2016-04-07, PHOTO: Courtesy of Speed Dating
Linda, the speed dating organizer, at an event
“Don’t be shy,” my friends say. It’s so easy for them to say that, they are a happily married couple, I think and take a sip of my gin tonic. I am sitting at the Warehouse, a bar in Windhoek, the capital city of Namibia, and I am waiting for speed dating to begin.
Having only two more weeks to go until my visa expires, I have nothing to lose. Let's see if I can find a nice guy, who is willing to marry me. Just joking, I am here to have this speed dating experience and write about it for the German newspaper here called the Allgemeine Zeitung. But it can’t hurt to have a look at the single men in Windhoek.
Linda, the organiser leads us into the room.
There are tables sat up, the lighting is dim, candles are set on each table. I sit down. Participants are coming in everyone and starts chatting. That's what I love about the people here: they are loud. They are not shy. But I notice a lack of men; 25 women will date 13 men.
“Hello everyone” the moderator tries to catch the attention of the people. After two minutes it gets quiet. She explains the rules. The men are rotating, the woman remain sitting at the tables. She has a whistle, which she will use when the date starts and ends after three minutes. In front of me there is a paper with some questions like, How long have you been single? What are you looking for in your partner? and just in case the conversation gets stuck.
Okay, ready, go! The first minute I spend explaining how to pronounce my name to my counterpart. Finally I write it down to have more time. He is tall and has long Rastafarian-style dreadlocks. He tells me he is a taxi driver.
“Great!” I say, “I need a cabbie, I can trust.” Taking a taxi is not always safe in this country. He doesn't seem to be happy about my reaction. Luckily, the moderator whistles. The next guy’s name is Franz. He is African and a native of the Nama People, who are an indigenous group here. A lot of the Nama People have old German names, because their ancestors had encounters with Germans. He tells me his grandmother became pregnant from a German. Not a nice part of history, because some Germans were raping black women, but let’s not talk about these sad issues on a date. Franz is working in information technology and he can speak the Kohisan-language of the Nama-People, which features clicking sounds. I like that language. It makes me laugh. So for the next two minutes I try to say a word in Nama. The trick is to make the tongue–click and speak the word at the same time, I fail, but I had fun.
Next is John, a guy from Los Angeles, California. He tells me he had quit his job to travel to Africa. He has already climbed up Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Now he is in Namibia and wants to meet new people.
Sheesh, talking nonstop can be exhausting. The next guy sits down. He is African, but he speaks German fluently. When he was young, the government of Namibia sent some kids to Eastern Germany. They grew up in boarding schools, learned German. The goal was to build a communist-elite for the government. His generation is called “DDR-Kids,” some of them really struggled to get back to their own culture after the wall came down.
We chat and laugh and the moderator whistles. Next: A German-Namibian who likes rock-climbing. Not for me. The noise in the room is loud, men move on. I discover that it’s pretty convenient to sit there and let men come by and talk to me.
Did I find a match that evening? No, but I learned a lot about the people here.
At the end of the evening I realize my most precious date of the evening are my friends, waiting for me outside – curious to hear how it went.