Thread by @CSakwah

This is not the first time that my aunt, Damaris, is hooking me up with a girl. The very first girlfriend that I had as a teenager, the very first love that my heart skipped for, was an upshot of a well-orchestrated hook-up by Auntie Damaris.

Story Thread

She has always been my favorite auntie since I was young, not because she hooks me with girls whom she perceives as beautiful and nice, but because she is a vibe.
In 2008, form 2, I was reporting back to school from a suspension, the first that I ever had.

Auntie Dama accompanied me back to school to face the disciplinary committee.
We traveled from Busia, through Bungoma to Kitale. In Kitale town, we walked into Khetias Supermarket to pick high school essentials.

While picking my school shopping, I spotted a beautiful girl from our sister school; St. Joseph’s Girl's School- Kitale. It was always thrilling to meet a girl from our girl school outside the school setting. It was more exciting because she was beautiful,

and she locked our eyes-sight the first time that we stared at each other.
After that, we bumped into each other from one counter to the other because you know, as high school kids, your shopping is almost uniform; paste, books, pens, tissue paper, etc.

We were bumping into each other on shelves with tissue paper, or paste or soap in almost in a synchronized manner.
Constantly, I would check the girl, admiringly, whenever she appeared in my sight.

I thought I also noticed her checking me in a manner that suggested that she was keen on me. Maybe she was just keen on the familiarity of my school uniform and not whoever was wearing it, I thought.

At one point, Auntie Dama caught me staring at the girl as she picked rolls of tissue papers from a counter away.
‘Do you like her?’ She leaned closer to me and whispered, teasingly.
‘Meee? Nooo. Auntie, I am not like that,’ I had just turned 15 two months earlier.

I denied vehemently. In those days, although adolescence had set in, admitting that I liked a girl in a bad manner to an adult was very embarrassing.

‘When my mother asked me for the first time if I was in a relationship with a guy, I cried myself to bed that night, refused to eat, and spent the following day fasting and praying. I was nineteen. My mother was forced to apologize, only for me to come out two months pregnant

a month later. I understand you, but…’
‘Auntie, I am not that way,’ I maintained.
That wind passed by. We kept on bumping into this beautiful girl from one counter to the other. I was awed by her beauty, I must admit, but I could not admit it that day.

She was petite, with a round face, chubby cheeks, restless eyes, and thin lips. At that moment, the most awing body feature on a girl, that drove us crazy, was the number of curves that a lady had on her face when she smiled or talked.

Of all the curves on her face, I loved how her lips curved when she talked. I stared at her as she talked to the supermarket attendant. I wished she talked to me, keenly and with interested eyes, as she did to the attendant.

Again, Auntie Dama caught me admiring her. She asked if I liked the girl, again. I denied it, again. I was just one deny away from equaling the record that Simon Peter set while denying Jesus.

The supermarket attendant pointed above, on the first floor of the supermarket. Soon, I watched as the girl climbed the stairs with the pose and guise of a model. She was driving me crazy, but hell was I going to admit to Auntie Dama that I liked the girl.

Two minutes after the girl had exited the ground floor, Senje Dama excused herself and muted something that I didn’t get well. She asked me to continue picking what I needed in school. I liked her more because of the freedom that she accorded me when shopping for school.

I thought she was going to pick something somewhere else, rush to the washroom, or anything that needed her presence alone. I busied myself with shopping as I waited for her return.

After waiting for 5 minutes without seeing her, I decided to take advantage of her absence, climb to the first floor, and keep the presence of the girl next to my eyes.
I didn’t have the guts to initiate a conversation with a girl whom I was interested in.

I was still shy and baby-boyish. I was allured to be close to her, to watch her as she picked her shopping, and do nothing else but admire her until she exited my stage. I climbed the stairs to the first floor where Khetias supermarket used to stock books and other stationery.

I did not find her by the books’ counter. I searched further. One counter away, voila, there she was in her breathtaking pose, just like I would have loved to see when taking her photos. She there standing by the sanitary pads counter. She was not alone, though.

She was talking to Shenje Dama. How on earth did they strike a conversation? Shenjee Dama was 35 years, 20 years my senior. She was the typical dot-com auntie of the late 2000s.
The girl was very animated. They laughed and watched as I walked towards them.

My assumptions were that they were having a girlie talk, about sanitary pads or women empowerment. I said hi, to the girl, shyly, and walked on. Auntie Dama asked if I was satisfied with my shopping. I was. We paid and left for school.

All along inside the taxi, she never mentioned why or what they had exchanged with the girl. I was ashamed to ask her, for asking her would have betrayed the feelings that I had for the girl, which I had denied. I wished and prayed that she would share it with me.

When she decided to keep the content of their chat a secret, I was disappointed. I went to class after facing the disciplinary committee that day. Days went by, the school grew more boring. But one thing remained constant, the girl. I could not stop thinking about her.

The thoughts of never seeing her again drove me crazy. I wished I would have asked for her name even, poor shy me.
Ten days later, one boring evening, a notorious love-letter smuggler stopped by my classroom.

Some students used to smuggle love letters between the boys’ and girls’ schools. The two schools were separated by just a fence.
This guy walked into our classroom. Everyone lifted his head to give him attention, hoping to be among those who were to receive love letters

from their girlfriends from our girl school. Apart from me, the lord of shyness, first of his name, the high-sparrow, Grey Warm, the warrior of the unsullied. I had no business with him, as I had no business with girls.

I know what my grandmother sent me to school to do; seducing girls and exchanging missives laced with sweet nothings and song dedications was not part of the reasons.
He stood in front of the class and started reading the names of those who were loved, while the unloved studied.

Of Course, there were the usual guys; Alex Kinyanjui received 5 letters from his 5 girlfriends, Vincent Tekey from his 10 girlfriends, Arnold Okere, Abel Saina, I remember those guys and the usual names expected to receive love letters from their girlfriends.

Then, one last letter, he read the name Sakwa. Just for the record, there were 2 Sakwas in our class. I was the renowned Sakwah. The other Sakwah, Aduvaga Emmanuel, used Sakwah as his third name. He was commonly known as Aduvaga and not Sakwa.

‘Sakwah, hurry up. Utafanya nishikwe na hizi barua hapa,’ the smuggler said. I remained sitting on my chair. Emmanuel Aduvaga Sakwa rose to his feet, he had written to his girl a week earlier. As he walked to collect the letter, the famed love-letter-smugger read my full name:

Sakwah Ongoma Collins.
Me? I was shocked. Receiving a love letter from the girl school? Esie sa? Mwitsukhulu wa Ongoma? How? My classmates started murmuring, definitely, they were as shocked as I was.
I tore apart the envelope to the sweetest smell I have ever smelled.

Her perfume, ohh Lord, it smelled like a flower garden in Ibiza. The girls always perfumed their letters. I carefully unfolded the decorated writing pad. In the middle of the writing pad was a photo, her photo.

She enchanted me into deeper love even before I read the letter just by staring at her beautiful face and the photo smile.

‘Do you remember me? From the picture? Well, I am so-and-so, we met at Khetias Supermarket. Your auntie gave me your name, class, and stream and requested me to write to you. I am sorry, aki. She said that you were so stressed with the suspension

thing that you could not come to talk to me. I understood you, that is why I gave you time to get over the suspension before I wrote to you...’ She added more sweet nothings and asked me to write back as soon as possible.

I wish she knew nothing else stressed me on that day like gathering the courage to say hi, to ask for her name even.
Nyasaye wange, Mwitsukhuku wa Lay Canon Erina Nekesa Ongoma had received a love letter from the most beautiful girl that he had ever seen?

Peace in that class was suspended, normal studying was suspended. The picture moved from one desk to the other, from one classmate to the other, until everyone had seen the beauty behind the love letter. She was to be seen whether they kithnii or ndekni, she must be seen!

And they all saw her. Kinyanjui with his 5 letters had nothing on me.
I must have collapsed with ecstasy or pure bliss or enchantment. That was the sweetest surprise I had ever received in my life. In that preps time, I completely forgot that I was revising for a CAT.

Instead, I summoned Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, Wole Soyinka, Maya Angelou, and Margret Ogot and gathered them into my head. Together, we composed the love letter. I wrote in West Life’s tone and dedicated to her the sweetest song I would have imagined.

I glued her photo inside my desk. I stared at her photo every time I walked into the class, and every evening when I left class for my dormitory. Even so, her image still remained in my mind, even in my dreams.

She received the letter, and loved it, and wrote back in Chimamanda's tone, and dedicated to me a lot of Celine Dion.
We kept on exchanging love letters, fell in love, and met once during the closing day of the second term at some hotel in Kitale called Eroko Boulevard.

A few weeks to the closing date of my third term, form 3, she wrote to me a sad letter. She announced her parents’ plans to transfer her to Moi Girls - Eldoret because she was struggling to adapt to the cold Kitale climate.

The reason why I bumped into her in a supermarket, on a school day, was because she was coming from home to seek further treatment. She was from Nakuru. That was the last time that we communicated.

Sadly, the high-school romance died from the natural death that happens after everyone went back to their homes.
I have never seen her again, never heard from her, and sometimes it pains me imagining that another won her love, broke her heart, or even married her.