When I Knew She Was The One

Arguably my best memories of Ruth happened when we weren’t together. When I lived in Thika, there’s this time the water company cut off supplies for the best part of one week. I survived on my 200 litre plastic drum. Matters came to a head as we approached the seventh day and I started scraping the bottom of the barrel with every jug of water I withdrew from the drum.

I hardly knew any of my neighbors and it didn’t seem to me that anyone else was affected by the water shortage. When Friday came along, I didn’t shower in the morning, choosing to save the shower for Sabbath instead. I told Ruth of my predicament on the phone with no expectation that she’ll do something about it. There’s a mkokoteni guy who used to supply a nearby car wash with water. Even he told us he couldn’t find water at his usual sources.

I lingered in town after work that day. My plan was to only enter the house to sleep so I could have water for Saturday morning. When one restaurant closed I moved to the next until only bars were open. That was the cue for me to go back home and slip beneath the blankets in the hope sleep would mask the need to go to the toilet and use water for the following day’s special shower.

Lo! and behold! No sooner had I opened my kitchen door than I found the 200 litre drum full to the brim with water. What a pleasant surprise! Had an angel passed by? Yes! Not surprisingly, that angel was Ruth! I didn’t appreciate what I had until morning when neighbours started knocking on my door one after the other. They all wanted the same thing. “ Kuna msichana alikuwa hapa jana tulimuona akiletewa maji na mkokoteni,” one of my neighbours said. They wanted the contact of the mkokoteni water vendor.

When I got the supplier’s contacts from Ms Right and shared them with the first neighbour, the rest made a beeline to my door with the same request. That’s when I knew Ruth didn’t pull the water from behind the sofa. She must have done something my neighbours and I had not attempted in one week. She explained that when she found I had less than 20 litres in the drum, she walked from our estate to the next looking for water. 

One contact led to another and voila! There was a water vendor in the next estate! She paid some tidy money for it but it was worth it in the grand scheme of things! From that day on I knew I had a gem in my hands. I had the Proverbs 31 woman and I didn’t know it! I had a girl who could walk from estate to estate looking for mkokoteni water vendors! I hit the ground running and have never looked back.

What Makes Ruth Tick

She’s Got The Healing Touch

Sometime in early 2023, we visited Oasis SDA Church on their Music Sabbath. It was a hot January afternoon. The sun came down hard on the tent structure and given the place was packed to the rafters, I felt dizzy and stepped out for fresh air. I didn’t tell Ms Right that I was unwell but she followed me to the open field where I lay down under a tree’s shade. Problem is I couldn’t stand up. I had lost all energy.  I could hardly explain my sudden sickness

Ruth quickly ordered a cab and took me home. She had to pull me up the stairs. She made me lie on the bed, served me a cup of water and wiped my face with a wet handkerchief before she had to leave. No sooner had she arrived at her home than she called to check on me only to hear the background noise of someone who was anything but sick. I had recovered and gone watching a football match at a nearby club! Was I sick that afternoon or was I short of vitamin TLC? Your guess is as good as mine.

She’s Got A Knack For Guesswork

It took me a full year to discover Ruth was an academically gifted A student. How can someone whose favorite YouTube channel is Wa Jesus Family be taken seriously? How can someone who loves watching Instagram reels more than reading books be a top student? There’s this time I used her laptop for a day. My oh my! Didn’t I want to smash it? The right side of the laptop was full of Netflix notifications dropping one after another and pinning themselves to the screen!

Ruth’s genius is not in studying and retaining academic content. Her genius is in guesswork. Ruth never gets lost in new places, she never chooses the wrong smoothie, 

Watchmen, Boda Bodas And Matatu Drivers Love Her

From Kamukunji to Kenyatta Avenue, there’s always a boda boda saying hi to Ruth and offering her discounted fare. Last December we visited a certain restaurant where I was denied entry because I couldn’t agree to leaving my water bottle at the entrance. I was on my way out when Ruth told me she knew one of the watchmen from her Pathfinder days in Kasarani. She had a chat with him and I was let in with no more questions asked.

One day coming from a hike outside town Ruth got the last matatu to her home. Being one of the last passengers to drop off, the driver left the main road to Mwiki and took Ruth home and only left when she was through the gate. Just the other day, Ruth got one front seat on a Super Metro matatu so I had to look for one at the back. But before she could board, the driver ased her if she was with me. When she said yes, the driver asked the guy sitting next to him to drop and take a seat at the back so Ruth and I could sit together!

She’s Detail Oriented

If the saying is true that the Devil is in the details, then I love a good devil. What makes Ruth a planner is her attention to detail. I taught her to use Google Sheets. She hit the road running and has never looked back. I wish I could share the humongous Google Sheet she’s used to plan our wedding. She’s got everything down to a T. Every coin coming in and going out, Ruth has her finger on it. There’s a Google Sheet for everything. From the critical budget to the socks and lotion. Weddings are tough but I’m typing this one day before the wedding because her meticulous planning has kept our sanity.

She’s Got Great Attitude

One of the things I love most about Ruth is she’s not a drama queen. Men tell me how their girlfriends go silent on them for weeks on end. Imagine a woman who’s so mad at you she can’t bother telling you why she’s mad. The good thing about Ruth is she only gets mad for 30 seconds flat and spends the other 30 seconds explaining why she got mad. One minute is the longest time Ruth spends without being nice and lovely. People say a relationship where lovers don’t fight is a red flag. That’s a red flag I’m willing to die with.

She’s Got Great Appetite

The day Ruth declines a meal is the day I’ll rush her to hospital. The day Ruth says she’s got no appetite is the day I’ll know she’s pregnant. While she may not eat like mtu wa mjengo, one sentence that will never come out of her mouth is, “Sina appetite.” Ruth will rather take a few bites than say she’s full. He who said there’s no greater love than the love for food had Ruth in mind. If you want Ruth to stop scrolling on Instagram, put chicken and chips before her. Businessmen say bei nayo hatuwezi kosana. With Ruth hata mkikosana food nayo lazima mkule pamoja. 

One month ago we had a morning photo shoot at our wedding reception venue. Ruth was in Westlands at 6 a.m. for makeup. I thought to myself, “Leo nayo atasahau kununua snacks.” Shock on me! When we met at 10 a.m., I discovered she had sent her friends to buy a whole basket of snacks! 

Makeup Saves! When Ruth Went Full Jezebel

The worst thing you can do at the Registrar of Marriages office at Sheria House is to walk in alone. That place is the latter day Noah’s ark. They only let in animals in pairs. Woe unto you if you’re spotted “loitering with intent” with no partner or purpose around the reception.

An online application for marriage only takes effect when the status changes from queued to Notice Board. So when ours took more than three days to change status, I pulled up at Sheria House seeking an explanation. The reception area had no receptionist so I stood there reading the marriage notices of other couples on the notice board in a bid to acclimatize to the new environment. Big mistake.  

A single person taking a keen look at the marriage notices at Sheria House is like a mean faced baby mama pacing up and down the church premises just before a wedding with baby in tow. Bad news. Security must have been watching me because as soon as I joined the dots on how people moved around the place, I went into what they call the pool office. Those in the pool office sit on sofas while those in the gallery where the notices are sit on wooden benches. Lanes. Security has to let you in though and that’s where I came unstuck.

“Shida yako ni gani boss?” the security officer asked me. I told him my application was taking longer than expected. 

“Wapi makaratasi?” 

Never mind the application was online. I logged into my eCitizen account and showed him.

“Hii bado. Ngoja siku tano kwanza. Ikipita Monday urudi hapa.”

Is that what they call summary dismissal? Anyway, when the application finally went through and we waited 21 days, we made another application for an interview. The earliest available date on the system was one week after our wedding. This time Ms Right took it upon herself to visit Sheria House in search of a rescheduling.

On the same day she was to reschedule, we were also scheduled for a brief video shoot with our wedding photographer. Ms Right was at Sheria House at 10 a.m. but she soon found out that those who visit without their partners are at a great disadvantage. Even the watchmen don’t entertain you. One of Ms Right’s strengths is reading the room. She knew she wasn’t having her way so she opted out and went to do makeup instead in readiness for the afternoon shoot.

If I quote the amount she spent on makeup that day, I will be in trouble. Suffice it to say that it worked wonders. It’s not advisable to visit a government office past noon but that’s the time Ms Right rolled up armed with expensive makeup, exaggerated eyelashes and the confidence of a well connected individual. It helped that the officials on duty that day were mostly men. The only question security asked was “How can we help you madam?” She was ushered into the office straight away without queueing before she could say the word reschedule. Whatever your problem, the minimum time you can spend at the registrar of marriages office is one hour. Ruth was done in 20 minutes flat.

It’s often said that when all else fails, keep showing up and find what will work. I say, ladies, if all else fails, turn up in makeup! Sometimes good old biblical plain Jane shamefacedness is not enough. A little Jezebel goes a long way!

Groom’s Shower Gone Wrong! There’s Only One Bride!

Last Friday, as we marked 30 days to our June 9th wedding, I woke up abruptly at 2:52 a.m. and found myself on the floor having fallen off the bed. They don’t tell you this in church but when the Good Book says it is not good for man to be alone, God wanted to protect Adam from falling off the bed every time he had a bad dream, but I digress.

Falling off the bed onto a cold hard floor in the wee hours hurts but for me it was like jumping from the fire not into the frying pan but into the safety of the hotpot. After being chased on foot from Limuru by a drove of donkeys, I lost them at Westlands when I took the expressway and ran faster than Eliud Kipchoge. However, upon reaching Museum Hill, I ran into a kennel of German Shepherd dogs coming at me with all ferociousness. I jumped from the expressway and landed on the floor. It was 2:52 a.m.10th May 2024.

This nightmare was 22 years in the making. Where were you in December 2002? For those of a certain vintage, you were voting out Moi together with his pet Uhuru. Yet my most memorable event that month was witnessing my first mass wedding at a church in Kitale. Everyone seemed to get a wife that afternoon. I probably missed out for being underage!

In my 2024 dream, my best man and groomsmen hosted me for…what do you call the male version of a bridal shower? I hear murmurs at the back saying it’s a bachelor party but no, that’s too hedonistic so we’ll call it a groom’s shower. There’s no prizes for guessing where the venue was. That church in Kitale. And we marched back in time to December 2002 while keeping all our 2024 ujuaji. And it was a mass wedding all over again. Now with much younger brides. Apparently, there were more brides in the church than wedding guests. And for some reason the church pianist played Burna Boy’s “It’s Plenty.” Thank goodness he skipped the “order Hennessy” part.

If you couldn’t order Hennessy in that church, you could marry multiple brides. The officiating pastor was like, “You get a wife, he gets a wife, she gets a husband!” He rang a bell like the ones shops on Tom Mboya street ring to signal bei ya jioni. If Jesus chanced upon that hullabaloo, He would have cleansed that temple again while slapping long prison sentences on the participants to boot!

All my groomsmen walked out of the church with a bride on each hand. When my turn came, I informed the pastor that I had a wedding lined up in 30 days. “Fimbo ya mbali haiui nyoka na hata maji chafu huzima moto, ndugu” he told me. I walked out with my cup running over. We hired a coaster bus to accommodate all our blessings and set off for Nairobi. Everything went swimmingly from Kitale to Eldoret. 

No sooner had we left Eldoret and darkness fell upon the land than an elephant appeared in the middle of the road. Our driver swerved sharply to the left and two brides went through the window. The driver swerved again sharply to the right to regain his balance and another pair of brides went through the opposite window. We stopped to check on the stricken brides but the elephant started running at us and we let lost brides remain lost. 

We ran into a traffic police checkpoint at Mau Summit. When the cops saw the remaining brides still in their wedding gowns, they asked for our marriage certificates. That’s when it dawned upon us we didn’t have any papers. We coughed up 20K for transporting brides without proper documentation. All hell broke loose when we got to Salgaa. No sooner had we stepped out of the coaster bus to replace a burst tyre than a pack of hyenas crept off the forest and chased after us. In classic miguu niponye fashion, we lost our bearings only to find ourselves on the shores of Lake Nakuru. 

The lake offered a brief respite but the animals there took a dim view of us before the zebras drove us off to Lake Naivasha. Moving from a salt water lake to one with fresh water may have seemed beneficial but we soon found out there was little to celebrate when we became guests of Lake Naivasha’s infamous hippos. Hippos love chasing humans and biting them in their behinds and we were no exception. We were lucky to get away with non-life threatening bites before we got to Maai Mahiu at the break of dawn.

Maai Mahiu is Kikuyu for hot water. Suffice it to say our predicament had reached boiling point. If you’ve run all the way from Mau Summit to Maai Mahiu, getting to Nairobi on foot should be a walk in the park, right? Hell no! We ran into a herd of donkeys grazing on an open field and the sight of us ran them beserk. They charged at us and we took off helter skelter up the escarpment, into Limuru, down to Kikuyu, Uthiru, Kagemi and for some reason I was the last man standing or rather running by the time we got to Westlands. Donkeys are not allowed on the expressway and that was my saving grace. Neither are humans on foot but I jumped that barrier like Ezekiel Kemboi haring down the 3000 metre steeplechase with gold in his mind.

Unlike open land where you can run in all directions, you can only run forward or retreat backward on the expressway especially when it transitions to above level ground. Like a pot that breaks at the doorstep, I met my waterloo at Museum Hill where the expressway flies high above the Nairobi River. That’s when I saw a pack of German shepherd dogs covering the entire width of the expressway coming down at me with all menace. I jumped off the expressway and found myself alone on the cold hard floor next to the bed. I grabbed my phone and the last WhtsApp message was Ruth’s. The lesson was home. The gods have spoken. There’s only one bride. The bride is Ruth or Lake Naivasha hippos will bite my bottom again. It’s Ruth or bust! 

Ruth’s Big Ugali That Will Never End

It’s quite counterintuitive how my best memories of Ruth happened when we weren’t together. I lived and worked in Thika when Ruth was completing her studies at KU. My weekdays schedule required me to be at work from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and since I was working out at a gym to manage my weight, the earliest I would get in the house was 9 p.m. 

Ruth’s schedule was the complete opposite. She would complete her classes at lunch time and had the whole afternoon to go swimming at Kasarani or raid Ruiru’s nyama choma dens with her classmates. I saved her from such debauchery when I issued her with my spare keys. Up until then she was the typical campus chick with time to spare and energy to burn. 

Every girl is a girlfriend material until you give her an opportunity to showcase her wife “materialness” if so to speak. When I gave Ruth my spare keys, she hit the road running as wife material 001 and has never looked back. One Friday shortly after she gained the keys to my kingdom – never mind she said my house was smaller than her bedroom – I got back home to find the biggest ugali I had ever seen since I started living alone.

You know the ugali is big when it wears the sufuria covering it like a hat. It’s so big the sufuria doesn’t so much cover it as sit on top of it. If you thought I was jumping up and down like a kid who’s seen cake, you’re wrong. Quite to the contrary, the spirit of Judas Iscariot lamenting Mary Magdalene’s waste of resources in anointing Jesus’ feet with expensive oil came upon me like a rash. I called Ruth immediately and reprimanded her for the wanton waste of cooking ugali I couldn’t finish in one sitting.

All my meal planning before I met Ruth was based on food I could clear in one sitting. My three sufurias were either on the cooker or waiting in the sink to be cleaned. Holding food for the next meal was never in their job description. When the dust settled, Ruth explained that she’s used to cooking for a family of seven and in her father’s house, the only limiting factor was the size of the sufuria!

I didn’t tell Ms Right this but I enjoyed that ugali for the next week! Then it hit me that it wasn’t such a bad idea to cook in wholesale fashion. From that time on, I would know Ruth passed by my house in the evening when I was ambushed by large servings of meat and ugali as soon as I went into the kitchen. It wasn’t long before my seven-day free subscription ran out. When Ms Right joined the dots and realized I was hooked, she asked me to buy a fridge to continue enjoying the service. That’s a story for another day but I will always remember that big ugali as the day Ruth transformed from a girlfriend material to a wife material. If they say the way to a man’s heart is his belly, Ruth built an expressway!

Ruth may be one of the smallest girls yet her gargantuan ugali betrays her big heart. It took me a whole week to eat her first large serving. Suffice it to say that like the proverbial gift that keeps on giving and like the widow of Zarephath’s never ending jar of flour and never emptying jug of oil, I’ll eat this woman till kingdom come!

Mambo Imechemka

I’ve lost count of the number of people who’ve come to me saying, “Nelson, Ruth amekusaidia sana.” Hardly do these folks back up their claims with statistical data but they are adamant that I’ve been the biggest beneficiary of this relationship. Nobody, absolutely nobody has ever come to me and said, “Nelson, kama si wewe, Ruth angehangaika hii Nairobi.”

That’s why I take this opportunity to set the record straight that I met Ruth when she weighed a paltry 49kg. I weighed 30kg more at the time. Rumour has it that at 49kg, doctors don’t recommend getting pregnant. To add insult to injury, that weight falls below the minimum entry requirements for some careers like the army or police service!

Two weeks ago Ruth and I both weighed 70kg. That’s a massive gain of 30 per cent under my administration! Wapi makofi? Scientists are yet to discover a way someone gains weight under less than optimum life conditions. Suffice it therefore to say that kama sio mimi, Ruth angehangaika hii Nairobi. She would not be wife material on account of being too lightweight to get pregnant and she would miss out on select jobs for being too small!

Seriously though, the writing was on the wall when we both weighed in at 70kg just at the same time we announced our wedding. We have achieved equilibrium. The stars have aligned. The die is cast and like General Julius Caesar and his army crossing the Rubicon to signal the end of the Roman Republic, we believe it’s time to open a new chapter. We have come to a boil. Truly, truly mambo imechemka.