The phrase “Love is blind” is commonly thrown around, but a visually impaired couple has come to personify it.
Nakuru’s Samuel Kiarie and Carolyne Wanjiru met in 2021 at Machakos Technical Institute for the Blind where they were both training to become masseuse. They fell in love and are now husband and wife.
Anyone meeting them for the first time can see that they are deeply in love—they quite often refer to each other as “my love” and “sweetheart.
The Nation caught up with them at their home in the Posho Mill area, Bahati, Nakuru County as they were running their daily errands. Wearing black glasses and carrying walking sticks to aid their mobility, the two warmly welcomed us into their home. To our surprise, they opened the front gate and later the door without any help.
“We met at the institution and after many interactions we fell in love with each other. I loved her voice very much and that is one of the things that made me fall in love with her even though I never knew what she looked like,” Kiarie said. “Secondly, she was kind, warm and hard-working. But what sold me was her generous heart.”
According to Kiarie, their interactions blossomed into a remarkable friendship, and after months of “stalking” Wanjiru, she gave in to his advances and they became lovers.
The two exchanged phone numbers and would spend nights texting each other—their phones are equipped with devices that make them accessible to the visually impaired.
Kiarie recalled that after completing their courses, he took Wanjiru to his parents for an introduction and later visited her parents, who blessed their union.
“As much as I cannot see, I was attracted to her by the way she would answer questions in class; she was very sharp. We were all amused by her. Luckily, we were sitting next to each other, that’s how our friendship began. We shared so many stories,” said Kiarie.
Samuel Kiarie and his wife Carolyne Wanjiru take a walk outside their home in Posho Mill Estate, Nakuru City. Both are visually impaired.
Photo credit: Boniface Mwangi | Nation Media Group
The two got married in 2022 and began their marriage journey, and the pictures hanging on the walls in their living room clearly show their love. They have vowed to be by each other’s side through thick and thin.
“I see her beauty in my inner eyes, she is the woman I have chosen to spend the rest of my life with. Despite our condition, I have vowed to love and protect her,” Kiarie said.
Explaining how they are able to navigate around their home without assistance, Wanjiru said: “We know our house and our surroundings, we can move around with ease.”
Recalling his journey into “darkness”, Kiarie said that in February 2021, he was attacked by an unknown assailant at night while returning from work in Nakuru City where he worked as a barber. The assailant, he said, followed him from the moment he got off a matatu. The man caught up with him a few metres from their house and attacked him. He was knocked down and dragged into a maize plantation where he was strangled before being stabbed in the eyes and then left for dead.
“I could not call for help; he had covered my mouth with a piece of cloth. He stabbed me in the eyes, and having noticed that I was weak, left me to die. I fainted and was only woken by the cold at around 3am. I crawled and turned to find my way and luckily I found myself in our compound,” he said.
Kiarie’s cousin, who had been sent to deliver some goods, found him writhing in pain and called for help. He was rushed to Nakuru Level Five Hospital for treatment.
After being admitted for a week, he was referred to Kenyatta National Hospital for specialised treatment, but the family opted for a private hospital.
“I was referred to Aga Khan Hospital for an X-ray and later my doctor gave me the bad news; my eyes had been damaged by over 90 per cent. I was given hope that one eye could be operated on get back to normal, but after two weeks of surgery it did not work,” he recalls.
Wanjiru’s eye problems started when she was in secondary school, but she was treated and given spectacles that enabled her to complete her studies. She then enrolled at Tracom College in Nakuru town where she studied pharmacy for two years.
After college, she was employed as a pharmacist in one of the chemists, but one morning she woke up and could not see. She was at home in Kiambu where she had gone to visit her family.
Wanjiru says her parents took advantage of a free camp set up in Njabini, Nyandarua County, to get her treatment but it didn’t work. She was then taken to Lions SightFirst Eye Hospital where she was admitted for two weeks. She underwent surgery to remove cataracts and her lenses were replaced.
However, in 2016, while working at the pharmacy, she noticed that her eyes were getting worse by the day and went back to the hospital.
A year later, her world “became dark” and according to an ophthalmologist, there was no hope of regaining her sight.
“I went for check-ups and was given medication. Later, I was forced to leave my job as a pharmacist for fear of giving my patients wrong prescriptions.
“I stayed at home on medication for a year, and a year later I was completely blind. I enrolled at Machakos Technical for the Blind and did a Braille course,” she recalled.
Before that, in 2019, Wanjiru joined a knitting class where she studied for a year before the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted learning.
Kiarie was born in Bondeni and attended Bahari Primary School before joining Katero Secondary School in Laikipia County. He dropped out in Form Two due to lack of school fees.
Wanjiru was born in Kajiado before her family moved to Kiambu. She went to Ole Tipis Girls School in Narok County and later enrolled at Tracom College.
“We will have a big wedding as soon as one of us finds a job,” said Wanjiru, beaming with hope.
