Darfur, Marriage and Babies, babies, babies...

I just spent 2 hours tonight with two guys from West Darfur, Sudan talking about marriage and children. The first one, Ishmail (in picture), has decided that he will marry one wife that he loves and that he will have six children. When I asked how he would take care of and protect six children in Darfur, he said with complete certainty: “God will provide.”

The second one, Abakar, is in a difficult situation: He will only marry rich women. He has five rich women that he could marry and he has to choose only four. He says that one is the daughter of his brother, one is the daughter of a friend who says that he will kill her if Abakar does not marry her, one loves Abakar and Abakar loves one. Which one does he not marry? And I sat there wondering,

1. “Is he serious?”
   
2. "Wasn't that four women anyway instead of five?"
3. “Am I really sitting here putting my valuable remaining brainpower into helping a man decide how he can marry four instead of five women?”
   

Ishmail then shifted his focus to me and my current situation. He says that George is a “very very lucky guy” to have me and that I will have to marry him and have six children. I said that I don’t think I want to have six children because having children hurts and I’m never really excited about volunatary pain. I told him that usually women get morning sickness in the first three months and he brushed off the whole morning sickness concept with a shocked face: “WHY THESE WOMEN GET SICK? You won't get sick. God will provide.”

And then he decided that maybe I could only have four children. Oh boy.....