They say love can find you in the most unexpected of places. This seems true for two Kenyans, Peter Waweru and Abigael Kinini. When Peter commented on a bloggers story, Abigael replied to his comment which led other readers to insinuate that they should share contacts. Three years later, they were walking down the aisle and are now six years strong in the marriage.
Blogger Jackson Biko Zulu shared their story. Take a look.
A reader here called Peter Waweru but nobody in their right minds wants to identify themselves as Peter Waweru online because you’d sound like a debt collector. Peter Waweru sounds like a guy who buttons all his shirt buttons even when he isn’t in a tie. So our man goes by the name WESH – PETERWESH, like James Bond; the name’s Bond—James Bond. It shows chutzpah with just the right sprinkling of grandiose. His picture is that of an exuberant bespectacled chap who probably loves beetroot. He hails from Timboroa; trees, farms and nduthi guys in gumboots sending milk to the milk centers. He started reading the blog when he was in Maseno University studying Business Administration. His comments, if you go back to read them, are long and thoughtful. He read my story when he was working as a business and social researcher at a company along Thika road. Then he commented. You can read it. It got 110 Loves. WESH- PETERWESH was literally running a mini-blog on the comment section. It’s like your tenant subletting the SQ to someone else. Everybody wins.
Now under his comment [people often commented on his comment], was another regular reader BUMBLEBEE. She was all the way in Taita Taveta in university there, studying procurement. She had noticed PETERWESH. “I always enjoyed reading his comments, they were detailed and thoughtful,” she says, “from his picture he looked like a weird kid. He had weird glasses.” She commented on his comment as she often did. She said many things, a little rumble that amounted to saying, “You, with your weird glasses, are my kind of guy. I think you are cool. Hit me up.”
Because it takes a village to raise a child, a reader PATT picked the vibe and egged Wesh to clarify BUMBLEBEE’S queries, “over coffee.” Then MWARE (who likes ‘hare’) said, “Peter, give this chick your number.” Twenty nine people agreed one of who was MWAX who confessed that he too liked BUMBLEBEE but the lady had shown her hand and he would be a gentleman and bow out and if – WESH- ever went to Spain, he should carry BUMBLEBEE with him because it seemed that girl was a scream. Eight people nodded at him in agreement.
All this was happening while PETERWESH was having chapos and minji in a ka-joint next to the office. He wasn’t dating, nor was he looking. He lived alone in a one-bedroom with no plants or pets, just him and his microwave. He’s the serious type who says stuff like, “I was looking for a meaningful relationship.” At about 3pm he logged back online to see if his comment had started a small warm fire where people gathered around instead he found a groundswell of cupids rooting for him and BUMBLEBEE.
So he commented on her comment and said, ‘Girl, are you sure you are ready for Timboroa love? Because it’s a funky kinda love!” No, no, he’s a gentleman, he wrote, “Hi Bumblebee, please share your email address.” This is the point where we say that “and the rest is history” but that’s not who we are here, we like history because upon sharing her email address on his comment in public, things got pretty funky.
A chap called Brian pinged her immediately while PETERWESH was still powdering his nose in the washroom. He wrote, “Hi ma, you sound like you are up my alley. How’s the day going? “He was pretty interesting, I will accept,” BUMBLEBEE says, “but he would email a bit too much and when I didn’t respond in a day he would email a “knock knock, anybody there?’ That was a bit suffocating.”
So, no knock-knock jokes, gentleman.
PETERWESH didn’t knock on anything. “He went with the motion, that was pretty cool,” She says. They emailed each other for a whole year; usual mundane stuff. PETERWESH is not good at emailing, he would respond after days and that would really get her goat. Then one day they organised a meet up at Artcaffe in Garden City Mall for 6pm. That day she took the morning train from Voi. She stared outside at the passing landscape but her mind was already in Nairobi, probably waiting for him at Artcaffe. In Nairobi, she took a quick shower at her pal’s place, did her face and slipped into a devastating short black dress and red high heels. “His profile on IG had a hashtag with Jesus or something and because of that I didn’t want to be inappropriate,” she scratches the air, putting that word in quotes, “I decided to throw on a trenchcoat on top which felt like I was wasting that dress. ” It was July. She sat at a table by the door, crossed her legs and waited. “I was feeling really sexy,” she says.
Because even the best-laid plans can’t go as planned, PETERWESH’S phone died as soon as he left the office. So he couldn’t say he was running late. Eventually he got there. “I found a very gorgeous woman in high heels waiting for me. She literally towered over me.” He says. “To be honest I had stalked her pages during the year we were emailing each other and she struck me as sophisticated and phenomenal. Even my friends thought I was punching above my weight.” BUMBLEBEE was running a company (still does) called KININI CREATIONS. She designs, cuts, stitches the clothes herself, a powerhouse.
They ordered fries and wings and they talked. He told her about how his family had to abruptly upend their whole lives in Timboroa during the post-election violence. She told him that their family home was built by her father from top to bottom using his own hands. “He’s a mason,” she told him proudly. [Her father is now deceased]. Made sense, he thought; she worked with her hands, she had inherited his creativity. A dextrous woman. He stared at her hands as she delicately peeled the flesh from her wings. He laughed at her jokes because she’s the funny one in person but he’s the funny one on paper; a writer of sorts. When the sky outside got dark and the cafe slowly shed customers he asked for and settled the bill. They took a matt to town and he walked her to her bus stage, the sky opened and thin sheets of rain started coming down. All around them people rushed home but they strolled through the streets like they were in some romantic movie.
Later, they sat in her matatu, him keeping her company as it filled up. Her hair smelled of raindrops, his shoulders a dark patch from the rain. They spoke in low tones. “Did you have a good time?” He asked her, “because I did.” She smiled and nodded coquettishly. He wanted to keep her smile in his pocket. He tried not to hold her hand, those nimble-looking hands that built beauty. Her father’s hands. When the matatu was full he paid the conductor and hopped off then stood on the pavement and waved goodbye with his small victorious smile then he thrust his hands in his pockets and ambled away into the darkness of rain but not a drop touched him because he felt invincible.
Later, he texted her to find out if she had gotten home safe. From her bed, cross legged like a Buddha, they texted each other for the first time, having freshly graduated from emails. She wore a private smile as she thumbed words into her phone, her body still vibrating from the rhythm of the evening. “Don’t curve me like you used to with emails,” she texted him, “taking days to respond.” He texted back: “the only curves I now know are the ones I saw today.”
She now laughs heartily at the memory. I look at him like, damn-dawg! He sits there wearing that yeah-what-can-I-say? look, “And to think I was covering my dress with a trench coat!” she squeals, “By the way, I was a bit cynical when I first saw the word “Jesus” on his bio. Most men who have bios reading ‘’Jesus’’, “proud father/ husband or a bible verse in their bio always turn out to be trash.” ( So are men who write GGMU, I’m reliably informed).
We are seated at Pallet Cafe in Gigiri’s Gigiri Close; a massive lovely garden that rolls down a tire to a wooden area. A beautiful wooden outdoor bar. A charming waiter wearing ostentatious Congolese loafers. We are seated by the swimming pool at the bottom of the compound. A beautiful snow-white poodle belonging to an Asian couple playfully skirts and yelps around. They are both having wings and chips, their food language, it seems.
I’m here because after dating for three years BUMBLEBEE AND PETERWESH got married six months ago.
“One day I went to his house after work, “ BUMBLEBEE says, “there were fresh flowers and some slow music playing from the TV, which was showing a reel of our pictures. He had a look on his face and as I looked around, taking it all in, a bit surprised and confused, he went down on his knee and he asked for my hand in marriage.” I look at him like damn-dawg!
“How long was he on his knee?” I asked because I have always wanted to ask someone this.
“A while.” She says, looking at him with a look that suggests that she’s ready to wear his skin.
“Yes,” he chimes in. “ I had sort of practiced my proposal. I knew what to say and when.” They are not only happy, they look happy. Joy bounces off them. I feel like a fly would accidentally land on their skin and die from an overdose of their sanitised happiness. They smile a lot. They look into each other’s eyes; lingering looks. While she’s vivacious, outgoing, and bubbly, he’s more demure. She looks like the risk-taker (as exhibited), while he looks like the type who wants to mull over things a bit longer. The kind of fellow who measures twice and cuts once. She’s the wind. He’s the windcatcher. Want to know how BUMBLEBEE knew for a fact that she would want to marry him? “I like potato crisps,” she says, “whenever I would go to his house for the weekend I would see that he had added potato crisps to his shopping. I would imagine him walking down the aisle in the supermarket, passing soap and detergent, looking for my potato crisps. Maaan, that for me really touched my heart. It meant that he was a thoughtful person who always had me in mind.”
A friend of mine, Shona, sees me and comes over to say hello. “These two guys met on the blog and got married,” I tell her proudly. She says, “Whoa, no way!” I say, “Yeap, would you believe that? Six months married now!” PETERWESH grins loudly. BUMBLEBEE smiles hard.
“Whoaa, how’s it going?” She asks them. He turns and looks at her as if she has better words to describe this overwhelming joy he feels. She says, “it’s going really well. We are very happy.” She looks at him. An angel sings. Of course it’s going really well even though he leaves the toilet seat up and it drives her insane but then again love is a form of insanity, isn’t it?
Well, congratulations to you Kinini Abigael and Peter Waweru. One day in the distant future when your marriage has been buried under the rubble of life and its relentless demands, when disappointments have finally been washed to the shores of your marriage and the language in your matrimonial home has changed its timber and now it feels like more teeth and less tongue, your words suddenly weighed with resentment and your reality gloomy and without a tongue of flame to light its walls and it all seems so impossible, I hope you all take a moment to at least read this piece and remind yourselves how beautiful your love was and how beautiful you all were in it. Then perhaps therein you might find a reason to fight for it again if it deserves a chance. Thanks for always reading and commenting and on behalf of the gang here, I wish you guys all the joy and health.
This story was first published on Biko Zulu
