Expat-o-Philia: A Sensationalist Title

Two feet from the party, I might as well have been worlds away. My mind wrapped up in thoughts of racism, misogyny, exploitation, assumed pedophilia, and general injustice, the very idea of casting aside my self-righteous disgust to join the festivities around me brings a feeling of overwhelming guilt. Kumay, and Ethiopian friend of co-Fellow Nastasia, had graciously extended an invitation to his best friend’s graduation party. I was physically there, but nothing more.

 That is, until our host’s words caught my attention:

“I don’t like that club. I went there once and there were all these old men from Europe and China taking advantage of our young women. It made me too angry…I couldn’t stand it.”

Just like that, my mind was lassoed back to the present. This was what I had seen in the Call-Me-Maybe-Sawa-Sawa-Sawale-loving bars and clubs of Addis the preceding night. This was the source of my faraway eyes, my profound disgust. This was I needed to hear: that I wasn’t the only one upset about this problematic element of expat culture.

This guy was right on the money. Let’s be best friends Kumay.

Most Addis bars are are patronized by a good mix of locals and expats. This is not the case in all African countries. Here is a picture of me with  some current and previous PiAf fellows. I assure you, we were surrounded by Ethiopians

So, what business do I have getting frustrated by this? Do I have a right to even question the relationships a woman chooses for herself?

These are fair questions. The easy answer would be that I am an Ethiopian by heritage, and it hurts to see a lack of opportunities push young Ethiopian girls and women (sexworkers and non-sex workers alike) into often superficial relations with older expat males. That’s part of it, but it’s not enough to justify my deep-seeded disgust.

Usually, the answer to the preceding questions would be no. As a rule, I tend to shy away from interfering in the chosen relationships of women, be they romantic, sexual, platonic, or give-me-a-break-you’re-in-your-early-twenties ‘complicated.’ (My little sister is the one crucial exception to this rule. That’s right Blaze, stay away from the boy dogs). But the question of choice gets convoluted in the asymmetrical rich-old-expat-young-disadvantaged-Ethiopian-relationships that dominate the Addis night scene. Before you accuse me of ageism or interracial phobia (I’m biracial, fool) give me a moment to outline the all too apparent power differential that exists in many of these relationships.

                                                       Club H20 in Addis, scene of the crime(s)

Many—but not all—of these women are legal adults. Nearly all carry relatively low social and economic capital (some are sexworkers). Regardless, something in me screams that these expat men wouldn’t be with such young, beautiful women if they lived back in Farengiland (Farengi is an Amharic distortion of ‘foreigner’). Either because of societal pressures, personal morals, laws, or a bad luck with the ladies, these men would be less popular back home. But for some reason, Africa is, in the minds of these men, a place where these structures go to die. Carrying on a tradition fictionalized by Kurtz and realized by the thousands of colonial administrators who flocked to the Heart of Darkness in pursuit of power, money, and adventure, these men have cast aside all sense of responsibility to engage in non-committal exploitative relationships with dehumanized African women. 

Some of the marriages are even non-committal. Without drawing generalizations about divorce, I have heard several stories of such intentionally temporary relationships in both Ethiopia and Uganda. One friend in Uganda hasn’t seen his European father since he was a small child. Here in Ethiopia, an Australian expat told me of a co-national who had a, in the man’s alleged words, an 18-year-old “w---e of a wife” who “intentionally” cooked him sub par food. This is why he suspected she was cheating on him. When the first man left his wife, she had no way to hold him accountable for their child. When the second man inevitably leaves his wife, she will undoubtedly face similar difficulties.

The oft-disadvantaged young women in these relationships do have agency, but this agency must contend with the tremendous socio-economic power of the male expat. One day, international organizations, civil society organizations, grass roots initiatives, and individual women will be able to alter the structures and conditions that contribute to inequality, that amplify this power differential.

Until the playing field is leveled, however, I implore all you seasoned expats: evaluate your relationships, think critically about your views on Africans, reject entitlement, and, most importantly, exercise some iota of social responsibility. To those of you in healthy relationships with Ethiopian women of all ages, engage your less thoughful peers.