Time and again I have heard many people console their broken hearts by insinuating that true love waits and I had never comprehended this until I saw it with Valencia Moreno from Ecuador. While on my first vacation in this long noble career in Zanzibar, Moreno and I met in the summer of 1974 while he was on a mission to establish a hotel business on the island. I have always narrated my experiences since my youthful days though my family has found it damaging family reputation and that I should stop the series (I won’t stop) but today, I will tell a story of my role model Moreno the master lover. As I entered into one of the few bars of Zanzibar, I saw one isolated Latino with very dark hair that did not match his light complexion with a beer and I decided it is the only table that tolerated alcohol. “Habari, nayitwa shooter,” tried to put together the little Swahili I could thinking he speaks it since almost everyone does on the east African coast but he just smiled and spoke in not so good English but we could communicate anyway. On our drinking spree since we had no one in the bar to compete with us, we developed a strong bond that has held us to date. We got talking the whole night until we started gossiping (sorry, men don’t gossip but chat) about our love life. “Shooter, who is the lucky woman in your life?” his question got me thinking why would anyone commit himself to one woman but I let him continue. “Well telling you the truth I have had very many on and off relationships and I like it that way,” I tried not to lie to him. “So you have been on a marathon of making love,” he interrupted me with evident disbelief in his eyes. “Between love and beer who do you love more?” he asked, again leaving me doubting the motive of this particular question. I was determined to tell him the truth, “Over the years, I have been faithful to one drink and that is beer but never was to a single woman.” My answer got him spilling some of the content he had been sipping. After cleaning up, I asked him about his wife or whatever the relationship was. The narration was long, heartbreaking but very hopeful and here it goes (in a summary). Shooter, I was seventeen when I met Florentino in Santiago, Chile. We loved each other instantly and I never looked back ever since. Her father, an engineer and aristocratic, never approved the relationship more so I came from Ecuador and was poor materially. He even promised to shoot me dead when he found us in his farm. But I was never afraid of that. I loved Florentino and my grandfather said dying for love is noble. Nothing would stop us and I had proposed for marriage. Her father learnt about it and flew her out to Argentina, arranged a marriage for her and she completely forgot about me. I went back to Ecuador. I never saw her until after 15 years in U.S.A with the husband and happy children. I was still single just like I am and am waiting for her to this day I have not fallen in love again and I know when her husband dies, I will marry her. Valencia Moreno ended his tale. I kept in touch with Mr. Loverman even when he returned to his native country and in 1998, he sent me a wedding invitation with the woman he had loved all his life. True, the husband had died in a motor accident in Chicago and Moreno married Florentino after over 39 years of waiting. This crap thing of true loves waits is nothing but fiction which I can’t entertain but congs to Moreno. angarambe2@gmail.com
