The women are so gorgeous, it’s almost ridiculous. Most pull their hair straight back, giving their stunning faces center stage. I gape at them in utter appreciation and a moderate-to-high amount of envy. It’s all I can do not to kiss their high cheekbones, or at the very least ask to stroll down the street holding their hand and laughing like their other girlfriends are getting to do. I want them to love me like I love them, but I’m just an awkward white girl wearing a Freebirds t-shirt.
Most of the young Ethiopian guys are strikingly good-looking. Like cover-of-a-magazine-Taye-Diggs good-looking. They wouldn’t last a nanosecond on Match.com. The cutest ones are tall and lean with that crazy pretty Ethiopian face. They have a casual fashion sensibility, pulling off faded jeans and t-shirts like African Matthew McHonaheys. I particularly like the longer hair dreadlocked into three-inch coils sticking straight out from their heads. I cannot wait to do Ben’s hair like this. Brandon likes buzz cuts. He says we’re going to fight about this. I’m prepared to die on this hill.
Americans are a complete smorgasbord of races and features. There is no “American look.” Sure, we have our own beauty, but we are completely indistinct, a result of centuries of melding and crossbreeding. Ethiopians are completely homogeneous. Everyone in Ethiopia is totally Ethiopian, except visiting white people who stand out like a donkey-drawn cart on a freeway. I spent most of my time in Africa feeling unexotic and stared at.
But here is the good news: I get two beautiful Ethiopians in my very own family, and one day they will give me grandbabies. BOOYAH.
