The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir (32 page)

It doesn’t take Carl Jung to analyze this dream. It’s pretty clear that my mom is still deathly afraid that I’ll become a lesbian. Perhaps all I needed to me make this switch was a nice
ladies’ vacation.

 

I will never forget landing in Dar es Salaam. We were incredibly unprepared. Only, we didn’t realize it until we were making our final descent and I asked Alison, “What language do they speak here?”

“I don’t know,” she said. We both turned to Pri.

“Don’t look at me!” she answered, her eyes wide.

“I thought for sure you’d know.”

“What does the travel guide say?” she asked.

“I didn’t bring one. . . .”

“I don’t have one either,” Alison said. We turned to Pri for a second time.

“Don’t look at me!”

“This should be an adventure,” Alison managed to say optimistically.

“Yes”—I flashed an unconvincing smile—“it’s all possibility
.
”

 

The minute we stepped off the plane, thirty cab drivers swarmed us. It was a feeling I haven’t experienced since childhood, the thrill and panic of being completely and utterly out of your element.

“Where are you going?
American?
Let me show you how you spend your money?” they shouted in broken English.

Before I could get my bearings, someone pulled my suitcase out of my hand. I turned to see a little man waddling off with all our luggage.

“What’s happening?”

“He’s stealing our bags,” Pri said.

“Thank you.” I rolled my eyes at her and ran after him.

Luckily, it wasn’t theft. It was his business strategy. By locking our bags in his trunk he was guaranteeing that we choose him. But, as a matter of principle, we refused his services. “You can’t just take our bags,” I said.

He pretended not to understand me. I started miming,
bag, me, give back, now
. Another cab driver yelled at him in . . . well, in whatever language they speak in Tanzania. The man yelled back. Soon they were fighting, pushing each other against the chest and threatening to do more. Meanwhile, another cab driver was picking the first cab driver’s lock. The other twenty-seven men had gravitated over to us, still yelling.

In the midst of this chaos, a teenage boy tugged on my sleeve. I looked down at him.

“You dropped something—” he said.

What?
I frantically searched for my wallet and passport.

“—my heart,” the boy finished with a smile.

I cringed, not because I was mad, but because I couldn’t believe I’d fallen for it.

“You give me money?” he added.

“No money,” I said.

Just then, the trunk popped open. Without hesitation, the lock-picker took our bags and threw them into his car. While he’d just proven his criminal-like skills, I was too overwhelmed to care.

“Take us to the ferry,” I said. We got in his cab and sped off.

Matt had instructed us to take a ferry from Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar. This was our only real plan. After that it was up to serendipity, which isn’t exactly the safest way to travel, especially not in a foreign country, but it’s my default answer. Unfortunately, I hadn’t bothered to check what time the last ferry left. We arrived fifteen minutes too late. And so, with no other option, we he headed back to the airport, through the crowd of angry cab drivers, and over to a small office where I paid a lot more than I expected to for a private plane.

Based on the way things were going—a taxicab mob, no guidebook, and missing luggage—you probably think I was murdered and that someone else is ghostwriting this right now. Fortunately Zanzibar is a magical tiny island where everything goes your way. We arrived as the sun was setting and checked into a hotel with an amazing view of the entire city. And as luck would have it, a friend of a friend knew a girl from Zanzibar named Aailyah. I sent her an e-mail a week before our departure. She called the hotel an hour after we got in and invited us out for drinks. It turned out Aailyah’s godfather was the president of Zanzibar. Knowing her was like being given the key to the island. We swam with dolphins, went on a private spice tour, and visited a beach with the finest white sand I’ve ever seen.

Only it didn’t feel like a leisurely trip to Hawaii. The stark difference between rich and poor was overwhelming and it felt wrong to sunbathe on a beach when starving people were yards away.

One night we were having dinner on the beach and admiring the sunset when a large ship pulled into the harbor directly in front of us. We watched a dozen African men wearing only loincloths pile heavy bags of rice onto their backs and load them onto a truck farther down the beach. They walked back and forth and back and forth, clearly exhausted, for the next two hours. It was hard to watch. I felt like a child again, unable to grasp it, sad. When you grow up learning that God loves his children, that he watches out for each and every one of us, and that we all were put here with a purpose, it makes sense, but only from the comfort of your suburban home.

On our fourth night in Zanzibar we were sightseeing with Aailyah when Pri brought up wedding ceremonies and how fascinating each culture’s particular traditions are. Aailyah told us, on the eve of a Zanzibari wedding, the new bride would go through what was called an Unyago ceremony where she’d spend a day with an old woman named Bi kidude and her Taarab tribal drummers. Only married women who had witnessed the ceremony before could also be present. Through music, dancing, movement, and a stick, Bi kidude would initiate the bride into the world of sex.

“What does she do with the stick?” I asked.

“We don’t really know,” Aailyah answered. All that mattered was that by the end of the day the bride, presumably a virgin, would be a sex expert, too.

“I have to meet Bi kidude.”

Because Aailyah’s godfather was friends with Bi kidude she was able to arrange a meeting. The following night, Aailyah drove us to Bi kidude’s village. Aailyah warned us that Bi kidude was a bit of a live wire, usually either drunk or stoned. And she suggested that we bring a gift. Not just any gift either, Bi kidude was fond of a type of alcohol that was illegal in Zanzibar because it’s so strong. On the way there, Aailyah stopped at a bar that sold the illegal drink under the table, in what looked like IV bags. We bought three IV bags and brought them to Bi kidude’s hut with us.

A young woman opened the door and let us inside. She spoke to Aailyah. “Bi kidude will be out in a moment,” Aailyah translated. “We can wait here.” Several straw mats lay on the floor. We sat down.

I could hardly hide my excitement. I was going to ask Bi kidude all of my secret questions, the ones I didn’t want anyone to know I thought about like,
Is there a certain way I should move my hips when I’m letting in the penis?
Or,
How do you give a good blow job?

I’d like to take credit for my moral fortitude, but part of the reason I never had sex, aside from weight, subsequent loose skin, and Mormonism, was because I had no idea how to. And it wasn’t just sex, it was all the little things leading up to sex. There were a few occasions in the months post-Hayes where I thought about going for it, but you can’t exactly hide the novice expressions your face will make while giving a blow job for the first time, so I always chickened out. I told Kevin about this and he recommended I watch porn for tips.

“Where would I get porn?”

“Just download it off the Internet.”

“They have porn on the Internet?” I genuinely didn’t know this. But apparently the Internet is full of porn. I was too scared to download it though—I feel like the government keeps tabs on those sorts of things. So instead, Kevin, who’s gay, just opened his laptop and showed me a short movie of a man giving another man a blow job. I’d never seen one before, so it was informative, to say the least. But now every time I’m making out with someone and it starts to go in that direction, I flash back to the instructional video and think, I could give him a blow job, but it’s kinda gay.

Gay or straight, porn was too crass for my liking. What I needed was a resource like Bi kidude, a wise old soul who could guide me through the landscape of sex—from the taint all the way to the balls, unless, wait, are those close to each other?

I wasn’t going to hold back, I was going to ask her anything and everything.

Just then a door opened and a tiny African woman walked in the room. I stood up to greet her. I’d never seen a 113-year-old before, but trust me when I say Bi kidude looked her age. She had a prehistoric quality, her skin was wrinkled and thick as leather. She reminded me of a tiny dinosaur.

I handed her the IV bags and smiled nervously. Aailyah started speaking in Swahili. Bi kidude looked at me and nodded her head knowingly. Then she gestured for us to sit down.

“What did you tell her?” I asked Aailyah.

“That you’re a virgin and you want to know about sex.”

“Sweet.”

We sat in a circle, cross-legged. I put my elbows on my knees, and my head on my hands, preparing to embark on one of the most basic forms of female communication: the slumber party—girls talking to girls about boys.

Bi kidude began by speaking to me in a low voice. I nodded my head and smiled when she smiled.

“What’s she saying?” I whispered to Aailyah.

“She says that girls used to always wait, but a lot of women come to her now and she knows they have been popped. She can always tell. It’s good if you can wait, she says, but if not, so are the times.”

“Ask her if she chose to wait,” I said.

Aailyah laughed. She said something to Bi kidude; Bi kidude laughed, too.

I took it this meant
no
. And then I realized it was a stupid question, at least the “choice” part. In the car Aailyah had told us that Bi kidude was forced into marriage at thirteen. She fled from this marriage and walked across the country of Tanzania barefoot. Being barefoot became one of her signature traits. Later in her career Bi kidude was taken to England to perform for the queen. Even in the presence of royalty, Bi kidude refused to wear shoes. This was partly how she’d earned her near mythic status in Zanzibar. It was either that, or her extensive wisdom about intercourse. Bi kidude had learned about sex by being promiscuous. She was proud of it, too. When the women in the village would look at her with scorn she’d yell at them, “At least your husband enjoyed the blow job I gave him last night.”

We listened as Bi kidude explained the ritual. The new bride would be bathed three times, her vagina thoroughly cleansed, and then she would learn the rhythms of sex.

“Bi kidude says if you’d like, when you get married, she can perform your ritual,” Aailyah translated.

“Thank you,” I said. Only this wasn’t what I wanted, I needed to know what to do as soon as possible. I was seeing Matt the very next day, and it’s not like I went to Africa to get laid or that I think Africa is the smartest place to lose one’s virginity. But if things went well, what would I do?

“Do you want to ask her anything else?” Aailyah looked at me.

Yes.
I looked at Bi kidude, sweet, small, fragile.
I want to ask you so many things.
Like
, How do you know if it’s the right time?
And,
If you give something away that you can’t take back, will you lose it forever? And does that even matter?
And,
What does it even feel like? Is it worth the feeling alone? Do you think sex is just a human need, or is it a sin? And am I putting too much pressure on it? Should I just pretend I’ve had sex and sleep with a stranger who doesn’t mean anything to me? Bi kidude help me!
Also
, What’s a dirty Sanchez?

I thought all of these things simultaneously, but when I spoke, all I said was, “I only want to get married once. How do I know I’ve found the right man?”

Aailyah translated my question for Bi kidude.

Aha.
Bi kidude nodded her head, and then she looked into my eyes and started speaking.

“He may not be able to give you clothes,” Aailyah translated, “or a roof over your head. And some nights, when you go to bed, you may go to bed hungry. But if you can do this together, with a smile on your face—then he’s a good man.”

In my world, I was used to analyzing my ideal mate’s top three traits:
Does he have a sense of humor? Is he sensitive to my needs? Do we both enjoy
The New Yorker
?
That sort of thing. Whereas this African woman’s priorities were a little bit different than mine:
Can he feed me? Will we have a place to sleep?
Or,
Will he protect me from the rebel soldiers who keep burning down my village?

I thought about this answer the entire ride home. I’d wanted a golden nugget of wisdom to guide me on my quest for Mr. Right. Instead, I realized,
I’m an asshole.

 

When I woke up the following morning I had a pit in my stomach. I was about to see Matt for the first time in two years. With this knowledge came a heightened awareness of everything that was wrong with me as a person.
I had so much time. . . . Why didn’t I diet more? Why didn’t I become better? Why didn’t I volunteer at Amnesty International?