Born city: ‘You are the only bean in my githeri’ was real love

Love letters were the thing back then Photo: Courtesy

Back in the day — when emojis didn’t exist — there was no short cut in wooing a girl.

You wrote a letter. You told her stuff like “You’re the only bean in my githeri” and “the only tilapia in my lake.” Things were more real then as you had to express yourself really deep. Maybe this might be one reason why most marriages then survived domestic storms.

I got thinking about love letters after Jacob Otieno posted a sample  letter by Phineas Muriithi who was his student in the 1980s.

The letter reminded me of my past letters when I tried to tune a woman — and having come from Eastlands meant expressing myself in English was quite a challenge since Sheng was king.

Some might laugh but the ‘xoxo’, ‘xaxa’ language common among young lovers was not tolerated. You had to be original when expressing your self in Queens English so the dictionary was your best friend.

On the envelope you had to inscribe “let it fly from me to you” before spraying the bahasha with Brut cologne for men. This is how the letter from Phineas read:

15th June 1985

Dear Sweet Shila,

Time and ability plus double capacity has forced my pen to dance automatically on this benedicted sheet of paper. I hope you’re swimming in the wonderful pool of Mr. Health there. I am also perambulating in the cool breeze of wellness here.

Sweetie pie, the reason why this miraculous thing is happening is because, honey, I love you spontaneously, and as I stand horizontally parallel to the wall and vertically perpendicular to the ground now, I only think of you, since you are a fantastic and fabulous girl put together as fantabulous.

I implore you to decipher this anthem of love oozing out from the innermost pendulum of my thoraxial cavity.

Darling, please stop haranguing with the feelings in my heart because I love you more than a snake loves rat. To me each day I start by dreaming of you.

Each time I see you my metabolism suddenly halts and my peristalsis goes in reverse gear. My medulla oblongata also ceases functioning.

Crazy, crazy, and crazy you may say but this is verily veritable. If only you knew what is going on in my encephalon you would prostrate.

That’s why I need to see you vis a vis soon for a better elucidation through tete a tete. No hyperbole & onomatopoeia, simple candidness.

Only you and me are protagonists in this subtle affair. As I cogitate and ruminate over the last episode, I genuflex before the Omnipotent and implore him to let this affair emulsify.

By the way, I was bamboozled, scintillated, exhilarated, and left in a state of prolonged euphoria by the contents of your missive, which was quite edifying and exalting. It left my biochemistry in a paradise-like equilibrium.

Empirically speaking, I love u chemically... I don’t ever want to see gloom and doom looming over your angelic live portrait. Let my appellation be scribbled across your heart, with indelible ink.

If any boy tries to ask for your companionship, tell him that you are leased and caveated.

I think I have to pen off here, because I still haven’t finished studying electrolysis polymerization. But before I evaporate, I like to revitalize your memory with those encapsulating lyrics, which proclaim that catarrh is my butter, your piss is my mimbo, and the world’s greatest lover is I.

Catch you later. Sleep tight and don’t let those bed bugs bite you because you are too sweet for them. Goodbye for now.

Your slave in love, your pillow, your lover.

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