My Amazing Friend Dan Waweru

Dan Waweru was a buddy of my eldest brother Joe Kagigite back in the '90s when they were young adults. We became friends, Dan and I, in the early 2000s when he came home for visits, mostly to chat with Joe. During those visits, he would borrow from me past examination papers of Starehe Boys' Centre where I was pursuing my high school education. The exam papers were for his sister to use in her revision.

In my interactions with Dan, I came to know him as a gentle and humble guy. But he could become talkative when sharing his thoughts. On a number of occasions, I was privileged to be one of his interested listeners as he dished out his wisdom born out of his deep thinking and keen observations.

Dan could also be refreshingly humourous. At one time in the 2000s, my brother Bob Njinju shared with me two jokes that Dan had cracked. One was about Dan teasing someone that his torch was shining very dimly like a lighted cigarette. The other was Dan claiming they had so many rats in their home that they had started giving them names. I found those two jokes hilarious, especially when uttered in my mother tongue of Kikuyu.

My friendship with Dan blossomed in 2006 when we both belonged to our hometown Catholic church youth group. Dan was then an employee of National Bank of Kenya while I was a student in the institute division of Starehe Boys' Centre where I was pursuing a diploma in information technology. In those days, Dan served as the youth group's choirmaster and I as the chief piano accompanist, though that was not my title.

It was during our time in the youth group that I learnt Dan loved watching soccer. He was a big fan of Liverpool FC. In appreciation of our friendship, I gave him a floppy disk that had a software program I had created on that year's FIFA World Cup fixtures. I am not sure if he found the software useful but I enjoyed creating it.

As the year 2006 wore on, I began doubting the literary accuracy of the Bible. I openly shared my doubts with my fellow church youths. Despite my heretical beliefs which made me stop receiving the Holy Communion, Dan never demonized or sermonized me. He just accepted me for who I was; he even exhorted the other youth group members to think well of my musical talent.

Come April 2007, I left my hometown Catholic church youth group and became a member of All Saints' Cathedral in Nairobi where I was hammered into a believer, and a staunch one for that matter. And after I became a devoted member of the cathedral, I lost touch with Dan for a number of years.

Sometime in 2012 when I took up writing as a hobby, I included Dan in the list of friends with whom I shared my writings via email. I regularly sent Dan emails which I was unsure whether he appreciated since I never received a single word from him until one day in 2013.

That day, Dan reciprocated my emailing initiative by forwarding to me a bunch of rib-cracking emails, some of which were bawdy. The emails were so hilarious that they had me in stitches. Later on in the evening of that day, I sent Dan an SMS, asking him to send me money to cater for the medical bill of treating my cracked ribs.

A few years later, on an uneventful day in 2016, I bumped into Dan on a street in our hometown of Kiserian. It had been a number of years since we had seen each other face-to-face and Dan was taken aback to see how plump I had grown, an observation that embarrassed me and made me desire to lose weight.

After that chance encounter with Dan in 2016, I began seeing him more frequently in Kiserian. Later on, I gathered that he had resigned from his nine-to-five job with National Bank of Kenya to run a grocery shop in Kiserian.

I occasionally dropped by his shop to buy a thing or two. One morning in 2017 when I went to the shop to purchase something, he informed me that he appreciated the emails I regularly sent to his work address. He further said that he had particularly liked one on "Tactical Manoeuvring". Even though I had exaggerated that story on tactical manoeuvring, Dan fell for it hook, line and sinker.

Two or three years ago, I noted Dan's grocery shop had been converted into a Safaricom shop and customer care centre. (Safaricom is the leading mobile phone service provider here in Kenya.) And on several occasions, I spotted Dan dealing with clients in the Safaricom shop, which made me assume he was now a Safaricom employee.

Last Saturday in the afternoon while I was busy washing my clothes in the bathroom, I heard the familiar voice of Dan greet my parents in the living room of our mansion. My senses had judged the voice right because several seconds later, my father told me that Dan needed to speak to me. As my father told me so, I could hear Dan saying in Kikuyu, "Tell Thuita to come and greet me. It has been quite some time since we last saw each other."

On finishing washing my clothes, I put on my towel and went to greet Dan. We exchanged pleasantries like long-lost friends, and then got down to the business that had brought him home: that is to register my Safaricom line as the Kenyan government is demanding. Dan registered my line in a minute or two, a short process that entailed scanning my national identity card and taking a passport photo of me.

After Dan left, I felt profoundly grateful for the initiative he had taken to come to our home to register my phone number without anybody instructing him to do so. He also didn't charge me a single coin for the effort. And by registering my line, he has saved me the time and energy of going to line up in a Safaricom outlet before the April 15th registration deadline. Dan Waweru is truly an amazing person and I am honored to call him a friend.

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NEW! NEW! NEW! If you missed my social media update three days ago, let me take this opportunity to inform you that I have produced a new hymn that is available in the videos' section of this blog. Just click on the "videos" link on the menu at the top of this blog to listen to the hymn.