Meeting my future husband

I met my future husband in my French class. He was from the Congo, a former Belgian colony. He spoke French, wrote poetry (which I liked), played the guitar (which I liked), was radical in his politics (which I liked), and charming, etc. etc. He was four years older than I was and had come to the United States on a USAID scholarship (kind of like Barack Obama's father).

We had a romantic, exciting, exotic relationship. I learned to cook Congolese food and dance the Latin style dances that Africans favored at parties. After he graduated, he had to go back to the Congo. We continued to correspond, and a year later he returned to the US for a training program in Washington DC.