Another man's meat is another mans poison...
c/p
Caroline, who came from Kiamariga in Mathira, Nyeri, was his wife for five years. She passed away in Denmark last December after a bout of pneumonia.
Perched at the first floor of Cheers and Choices restaurant in Nyeri town, Ryberg has an aerial view of the girls passing by. Leaving nothing to chance the Dane has paid a waiter Sh200 to clean the window panes so that he gets the best view of the street.
So he sits back besides his IBM laptop computer and marvels at the beauty of the African woman.
‘‘In Denmark it is rare for a young person to die. Only very old people die and it was such a shock because her death was totally unexpected,’’ Ryberg says. He says he must find himself another girl no matter what it takes, and she must come from Nyeri.Initially, Ryberg started looking for a soulmate in Nairobi but he ended up in Nyeri when he went to collect a title deed from the Lands Office for a piece of land he bought at Naro Moru.
He says he looked in the streets of Nairobi for a girl resembling Caroline but there was none and as weeks passed by it dawned on him that girls can also be beautiful without looking like her.
“I was taken aback by the many beautiful girls I saw in Nyeri town, much more than Nairobi. Some even looked like my late wife.
“Nyeri was different from Nairobi and there were more beautiful girls here. I decided my search should be concentrated in Nyeri and I took a room at the Central Hotel.
His first strategy involved getting a vantage place from where he could seek out the girls and then approach them, while another was to stop girls on the street. This particular plan did not seem to work as two weeks later he still did not have a date, let a lone a telephone number.
He dropped the idea and since Nyeri seemed to have more potential he decided to advertise in the Flame and Summit newspapers.
He admits the idea is uncommon even in his homeland but he was becoming desperate for a lover. It was also agonising to see so many beautiful girls yet he did not have any for himself.
“To tell the truth I am not too optimistic but at least there is a chance.
“Kikuyu girls are more beautiful than other tribes and are generally proud enough to have their own independent mindsets. The most difficult part is to find an intelligent one,’’ Ryberg said.
He is aware that it is difficult to get a girl who is genuinely benevolent and whose eye is not on his pocket.
‘‘But I would expect that if a girl comes from a very poor background, she will have retained some understanding of other people’s situations,’’ Ryberg said.
The advertisement was an instant hit and caused a lot of excitement in town.
‘‘I have interviewed at least 20 girls but most were not serious.
“Some were even twilight girls looking for fun. Only one came close to what I was looking for.
“But I later dismissed her when I discovered she had too many problems she wanted me to solve.’’
The ad read in part: ‘‘I am a handsome blonde Mzungu from Denmark working as a computer engineer for an international company and travel a lot.
“My wife died recently and left me alone with our two-year-old daughter. Now I hope to meet another Kikuyu girl with the prospect of possible marriage.
“You must be really beautiful, at most 35 years of age and sharp minded. If you are position 1, 2 or 3 in class, I will appreciate.
“Body features: Beautiful Kikuyu (or Meru), high cheekbones, good hair, certainly not thin and not fat (average-size “Matako” is a plus), height not important”.
But there was a timing mistake as the Ad appeared on April 1, and some of those who read it dismissed it as yet another Fools Day prank.
He now regrets that the coincidence worked against his good intentions even though some prospective girls still showed up at Central Hotel for the interviews.
“I interviewed 14 the following Saturday and the rest on Sunday and I picked one. But then the one I picked had too many problems so I called it off.”
The interviews involve simple questions to test the girl’s intelligence and the mind-set. Ability to calculate simple things like 7 times 17 or 5 per cent of 70 on the spot without paper is part of the test.
Other qualities are caring for others in deed rather than in talk.
When we met him at the restaurant after trailing him for two days Ryberg, who works for IBM, was toying around with his laptop but his mind was clearly on Gakere Road.
I asked him what he would do if the kind of girl he was looking for emerged in the street:
‘‘I will rise and follow her and state my mission and then invite her for a drink. Then we will talk.’’
Ryberg first came to Kenya in 1997 to do computer programming related to the Kenya Bankers Association’s new cheque processing systems.
He was to be in Kenya for several more years doing jobs for Kenya Commercial Bank and the Central Bank of Kenya, among others.
He met Caroline in June 1998.
‘‘It was one of those determining moments in life where you fall in love on first sight. She was keeping very much in the background, but was too outstandingly beautiful to go unnoticed.
“I pursued her with all means and also managed to get her to follow me to Denmark in October to learn computing.
“I had a hard time trying to keep our affair secret as I had a Danish wife and three children. It was a challenge keeping her existence secret.
“Soon the cover blew and my marriage was on the rocks.
My Danish wife was devastated and we unceremoniously separated.
“She took custody of our children and took over our luxurious flat (worth about Sh40 million) in Central Copenhagen.”
He was finally free to marry his sweetheart and the affair became public. Due to Caroline’s amiable character she was easily accepted by members of his family.
In March 2000 they had a baby girl named Karen Wairimu in memory of Karen Blixen.
Soon, Ryberg was back in Kenya for another computer job. His family, which now included two other children from Caroline’s previous liaisons (a boy and a girl), settled at Kariobangi South in Nairobi.
He says his worst time was when he watched his wife die in his hands after she contracted a severe form of pneumonia which badly damaged her brain.
Her body was flown back to Kenya and buried at her parents’ home. The children are living at a four-acre farm he bought in the same area.
Despite his love for Kikuyu women, he says he cannot trust their men especially where money is involved. He talked of a nasty encounter with one of Caroline’s relative who sold him the Naro Moru land at an inflated price.
He wants his young daughter Wairimu to stay in Kenya ‘‘as she’s just starting to speak. To take her to Denmark would make her lose her language and I am currently travelling too much.”
He would like to adopt Caroline’s two other children.
The wife hunter can be reached at
Ulf_RyBerg@Ekno.Com - Sunday Standard, Nairobi, Kenya.