Afrikaner Women Into Black Men

What does a White woman who's into Black men look like? I've been told quite often that I don't look like I'm "down with the brothers", whatever that means. Strange. My name is Erica Jacobsen and I'm a young woman living in the City of Ottawa, province of Ontario. I stand five feet ten inches tall, slim and fit, with long red hair and pale blue eyes. I recently graduated from Carleton University with a Master's degree in business administration and like so many young men and women with college and university degrees in Canada's Capital region, I find myself unemployed. How about that? I needed to pay my bills and since I couldn't count on OSAP money anymore, I had to get myself a new J.O.B. The solution? I ended up working as a security guard.

Man, I never imagined my life was going to turn out this way. I was born in the City of Johannesburg, in the Gauteng province of South Africa. My parents, Hans and Muriel Jacobsen are Afrikaners through and true. Our family has been in the Republic of South Africa since the old days. I lived there for most of my life, and honestly sometimes I miss it. In 2004 at the age of eighteen, I left the Republic of South Africa to study in Canada on an international scholarship. I fell in love with Canada, and decided to stay. That's why I became a permanent resident of Canada in 2007 and recently took the citizenship oath in 2011. It's one of the best things I ever did, at least that's what I thought at the time.

Two years later, I'm a dual citizen of Canada and the Republic of South Africa, and life isn't as fun as I thought it would be. I mean, I'm educated, and pretty, and I don't have a criminal record or anything. I considered going back to the Republic of South Africa. We have a booming economy, and we're not as stringy and bureaucratic as the Confederation of Canada. I was seriously starting to despair. So why can't I find work? Any job is better than no job, that's what my father told me. I found myself working as a security guard for Securitas Canada. They sent me to different sites all over the City of Ottawa. It's not exactly glamorous work but it pays the bills, you know? Eleven dollars and fifty cents per hour working as a rent-a-cop. And I'm a young woman with an MBA!

I found myself a small apartment in the east end of Ottawa, in the Vanier sector. There, in a neighborhood populated by Lebanese, Somali and Chinese immigrants, I made myself at home. It's one of the facts of life, you see. You've got to roll with the punches that life throws your way. I continued working as a security guard, and periodically I'd return to the Carleton University campus. Mostly I sat in the library, browsing on the computers or using the gym. My student identification card still works. Anyhow, I continued looking for work. I sent my updated resume far and wide. I sent it to corporations and small businesses, warehouses and restaurants. I just wanted a job that paid better than the Canadian minimum wage, you know? I mean, if that's the best job I can find, why did I bother going to university all those damn years?

Now, even though I sound like I'm complaining, I was adjusting fairly well to my new life. I've made some good friends while working as a security guard. I'd say that about eighty percent of the men and women working for the company are from some sort of immigrant background. I've met Africans, Arabs, Asians and folks from so many other backgrounds. Quite often, they've been quite surprised when I told them my story. I'm a pretty red-haired White chick from South Africa who came to Canada for school and work, and now, even after obtaining my Canadian citizenship and my MBA, I can't find better work than security. Isn't life supremely ironic? One of my good friends at work is Omar Etienne, a big and tall young Black man of Haitian descent. Omar is a bible thumper but I found him charming instead of annoying. He's a true believer and I respect that. I was brought up in the Anglican faith, but I respect all religions.

I found myself feeling two things as a result of working security, boredom and tiredness. Working twelve-hour shifts five nights a week is tiring as hell. Now, I told you that I live in Vanier, right? Well, the company has a habit of sending me to Kanata, which is about forty five minutes away from downtown Ottawa, which is itself twenty minutes away from Vanier. That means I spend an hour on the road each night trying to get to work and you can add another hour to my trek in the morning when I'm heading home from work. All in all, fourteen hours out of my day are spent at work, one way or another. I try to sleep during the day but the guys living in the apartment next door to me are loud as fuck and they're not making my life any easier.

When I'm not at work, I try to have a life and I fail miserably. On weekends, which I mercifully have off, I sleep mostly. Sometimes I go to the movies. A lot of the guys and gals I was friends with at Carleton University have left the City of Ottawa because they figured out there are no jobs here. They've gone to places like Calgary, Montreal and Toronto. Some of them have gone to the United States or the United Kingdom. Canada is experiencing a brain drain these days because a lot of our university graduates can't find work in their fields so they're looking at America or Europe for employment opportunities. Not that I blame them, you know? I mean, look at me!

Life wasn't looking too good, until one day, things changed. Omar has been bugging me to come to his church for a while and one day, I finally relented. The big and tall young Haitian man brought me to this Adventist church in downtown Ottawa. To my surprise, I wasn't the only White person there. I saw some Arabs, two Chinese chicks and one White guy. The rest of the congregation was Black, split between Haitians and continental Africans, Omar informed me. I really enjoyed that church and I felt really welcome. That's why I began showing up every Saturday, because, well, I liked the friendly congregation, and I liked Omar, too. Besides, going to church sure beats staying in my underwear in my apartment, watching TV and sulking about my problems, you know?

I got to know the people in Omar's church. There's a really nice guy named Ares who's the leader of the Singles Ministry at the church. He's a Black man in his early forties, and to my surprise, he's a professor at a French school in town. Good for him. Through Omar I met Brother Ares, and through Ares I met Cecilia, a tall, gorgeous young Black woman with a butch haircut. Cecilia and I ended up becoming friends. She goes to Carleton University and she's considering entering the MBA program. I cautioned her about it, using my life as an example. Omar, Cecilia and I became good friends and movie buddies. Cecilia introduced me to her girlfriend, a pretty Asian chick named Miranda Chang. I was a bit surprised that Cecilia was a lesbian, since she's such a church freak and all, but hey, a good Christian isn't supposed to judge, so I decided to support Cecilia and the woman she loved. Love is love, right? Miranda was charming, and she got along with both Omar and myself. Yeah, we all became tight friends, as they say.

Life went on. I didn't feel so alone these days because I had good friends, but I still felt a bit lonely because I didn't have someone special in my life. I saw so many couples hanging around, all lovey dove with each other. Made me want to puke sometimes but also made me feel kind of jealous, you know? Cecilia had Miranda, her gorgeous Chinese girlfriend. As for the two loud guys in the apartment next door to me, Paul and Rudolph, it turns out they're not just roommates, they're boyfriends. How about that? Yeah, it seems like everyone's getting some but me. One night, Omar and I sat in the movie theater at Gloucester near Blair Station, and we watched the movie Zero Dark Thirty.

As we came out of the theater, something amazing/corny happened. I was right there on the steps of the Silver City Gloucester movie theater...and tripped on a path of ice. I was about to fall on my ass, when Omar caught me. With all the people exiting the movie theater at once, it's easy to bump into people and lose your footing. Anyhow, Omar caught me, and looked at me in such a way that I blushed. Are you alright? He asked me. I nodded, and smiled, thanking him for his concern. As we talked to the bus, we just laughed off the incident.

As we approached Blair Station while cutting through the mall parking lot, a little old lady who had seen the whole falling thing smiled at us and told us we made a cute couple. Omar and I laughed and told her we were just friends. She smiled, nodded and walked away. Omar and I got on the bus, and the rest of the ride we just talked and laughed about the movie. The American female director really pulled out all the stops on this one. Omar commented on the redhead lead actress in the movie and told me he found her cute. I laughed and asked him if he had a thing for redheads. He smiled and told me he liked the one in front of him. Then he kissed me.

Omar kissed me, and much to my surprise, I kissed him back. I got so into it that I missed my stop. The bus rolled from Blair Station to Saint Laurent, where I normally got off to catch bus eighteen to Vanier Park, but Omar and I kept on kissing till we got to Hurdman Station. When our lips at last parted, we were both breathless. Omar smiled and told me he'd been wanting to kiss me for a long time. I smiled and told him he was a good kisser. Then I grunted and slapped my forehead because I missed my stop. It was already past eleven that night, which I meant I would have to walk two miles in the snow from Hurdman Station to my apartment on Donald Street in Vanier. Fortunately, I had a gentleman to walk me home. Linking my arm with Omar's, I stepped into the road.