Men only: My estate beauty when we were teens

I think it all started when we were playing hide-and-seek, back when I was in Standard Six. Let’s call her Wanji.

For some reason that I cannot recall, we were all alone in our house. During the August school holidays, on a very rainy afternoon.

Wanji ran upstairs to hide, and I followed, and found her in the wardrobe, and said ‘gotcha!’

But it was her who got me. For the rest of the year, I was always buying her Patcos and goody goodies (there really was a candy called ‘Goody Goody’) from the generous weekly allowance my mum gave me.

This ‘kutoanishwa’ na madame begins so early, I think it is in men’s DNA. Anyway, by Standard Seven, we were all starting to feel too mature for candy and hide-n-seek.

Instead, I befriended her kid brother Walter*, bought him the goody goodies, and spent a lot of days at their house watching dumb action films with him (dude was like 10, I was like 12).

The excuse was that wakina Walt were the only ones with a VCR machine in the estate — but the truth was I just wanted to see his sis, Wanji.

By the time I was in Class 8, I had found a way to cut out my middleman (or middle boy), Walt.

Besides, it was embarrassing to hang out with a boy two years one’s junior in our time, and the action films were tedious.

I discovered that Wanji loved a series of teen romance novels called the ‘Sweet Dreams’ series.

Since my mum actually used to give me book vouchers every month, I began to buy and ‘lend’ these Sweet Dreams to Wanji (never mind that my own reading interests had moved to Sidney Sheldon and Perry Mason novels).

By reading these romance books, Wanji and I could discuss their characters for hours. And talking to her as I gazed into those dreamy eyes was all I wanted then, I can now confess that my first ‘book club’ of two had titles like ‘Te Amo means I Love You,’ ‘Ten Boy Summer’ and ‘Green Eyes.’ I still can’t believe I once loved Janet Quin-Harkin alongside James Hadley Chase!

But then along came Form One, and Wanji went to boarding school. I still have a picture of her I took during their Swim Day at State House Girls’ school. In it, Wanji is dressed in a white tank top, pink culottes and white sandals, with her hair up and spiky (as was uber cool in the early 90s), staring straight at the camera with those dreamy eyes.

A month later in April, I would go to tutor a Standard 8 candidate called Cate in the neighbouring estate, and fall badly in 15-year-old love, and forget my long crush on Wanji.

Eventually, Wanji’s dad would make lots of money (importing tires) in newly liberalised economy of the country and build a house in Runda. After Form Four, Wanji would throw us all (old estate cohorts) a ‘warmer’ party there that we still remember.

Then a decade would pass without my seeing Wanji, as our lives rolled on in different directions.

Until the Wednesday of June 7, 2006, when we’d bump into each other on the street outside our offices. Hugs, ‘long time’ and all that – and we went for lunch at the nearby Fiesta in Chester House.

She told me she was now dating an old neighbour (from Runda, not our first Nairobi West hood). I told her I was in between relationships!

Wanji then told me she, her man, and her pretty BFF (*wink, wink) were going for the Rhino Charge out-of-town trip that weekend. Would I like to come for a blind/ double date?

I told her it sounded like a match-make made in heaven, but I was off to Russia that very weekend…

I wrote this piece today because in this era of sly slay queens, I thought it would be nice to reminisce on ‘first love,’ which is almost always guileless.

I wrote this because, yesterday, September 29, Wanji would have turned 40. But she passed at 27.

I wrote this because I’ve dreamed of what it would have been to be speeding over a dark countryside road that June night on a Saturday over 12 years ago, with a pretty new date beside me in the back seat, Wanji upfront, her boyfriend’s hand on the wheel.

A red Mitsubishi Lancer lancing towards a stalled truck, with no lights, stuck right on the road.