Ndine musikana wangu ! (I got myself a girl)

Welcome back! We are happy to see you.

We hope you managed to participate in the activities from last week and managed to share or hear the juicy stories. That definitely revives your own relationship and inspires your children and others.

If this is your first time on this blog, we would suggest that you start with our first blog post, followed by last week’s “The Meeting” post.

To get a little bit of background about our family and the flavour of the topics to be covered please visit our About Us page.

Now we continue…

As you would expect, it was not long, before I showed up outside Wim’s office at the end of a working day. It was actually only two days since our parting!

I just miss the unpredictability of those times. With no mobile phones (we call them cell phones in Zim) in use at the time, Wim was not expecting me. She cheerfully smiled and warmly welcomed me. After the some initial small talk, our conversation just continued from where we had left off the last time.

I walked her home.

This was the first of the many walks home to follow.

Then we added lunch time visits – loved those days where we would have lunch visits followed by an after-work walk. This was one of the times I appreciated the days when my Uni schedule was light.

What were we talking about? We were just getting to know each other as friends.

We talked about our families, our upbringing, our fears, our joys, our aspirations. We were just like an open book to each other – we felt so much at ease to discuss these personal issues. We both had a good sense of humour and shared a few jokes.

We were not in a relationship. Not yet. Just friends.

After a couple of months, I felt that this relationship was ready to progress past mere friendship.

I made the move.

As I prepared my “line of attack”, I somehow found myself in a card shop. I don’t know how I ended up there, but there it was – a perfect card to advance my case. I bought it.

I still accurately remember the first words on this card – I should have memorised the whole of it. It went as follows…

Something has been happening between the two of us that I do not understand and don’t know where this is going

I scribbled at the end and wrote – “I think I do understand – I am falling in love with you. Are you?”. (Please note that in Shona there is one word for liking, loving, etc. It was only after coming to the UK that I heard that you start with “I like you” before progressing to “I love you”)

That same day I gave Wim the card

I allowed a couple of days before I asked Wim what she thought of the card I had given her.

Those couple of days of waiting were unsettling, not knowing what answer to expect. I didn’t want to apply unnecessary pressure. I tried to behave normally, but I bet my nervousness showed through.

I just could not wait any longer. I was walking her home after work when I asked whether she had given any thought to the message in the card.

She said that she would be giving me a card in response, but I encouraged her to say what she thought there and then, and not to bother about getting a card.

I held my breath.

Then Wim said “Yes”.

We were still some distance from her place. At that time I just excused myself and said that I had to go. She looked at me in disbelief.

I ran from Fourth Street all the way to my university accommodation.

Rushing into the room, I shouted to my roommate and good friend – “Ndine musikana wangu!” (I got myself a girl!). I could not keep the good news to myself.

Wim and I were now an item.

Years later into our marriage, I would ask Wim at what point did she decide to say Yes. She said that “it was because you had shown genuine interest in me and you were not pushing your advances. You had become a close friend, making time to come and see me. You were a gentleman. Even before you gave me the card, I had concluded that you were the answer to my prayer.” This was the first time I had heard of the prayer detailed in The Meeting blog post.

The following day I was at her office during her lunch break. I apologised for my unexpected behaviour the previous day. She joked that I had run away. We had a good laugh.

We had to agree the ground rules for our new relationship and set boundaries to avoid unintended emotional attachment that would complicate the relationship.

We agreed on sexual boundaries, sex before marriage was out of the question. How we would conduct our relationship should not be an embarrassment to our family and to God; etc

We are glad we set those boundaries at that early stage of our relationship as this would guide our relationship henceforth.

We were now ready for Dating and Courtship. See next week’s blog!

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