Mpho Pule (38) met Joe Nyakale (44) in 2004 when he offered her life to work. She accepted. And it stayed that way for months. She says: "That’s how it was for a while, he’d pick me up and drop me off at work but he didn’t make a move on me. I even told my family about the nice man who often gave me a lift. For more than four months, he never said anything, or asking me out. So I concluded that he was being neighbourly since we both lived in Kempton Park."

Joe echoes her, but he could see the humour too. "In 2004, she scored a free lift club," he says. "Petrol is expensive. It took a while for me to tell her how I felt."

However, Mpho says she was in a long-distance relationship when she met Joe. "I gave birth in 2003. So the baby was a year old in 2004," she explains.

"I didn’t think he was my type," Mpho says. "And the end of 2004, he declared his love for me. I refused to date him and told him we should stop seeing each other."

But he didn't give up and pursued her for years. In 2008, she agreed to date him but wanted to take things slow. "I didn’t think she’d agree to date me," Joe says. "That’s when I realised I’m very patient."

"Taking things easy, it wasn’t very easy," he admits.

Mpho says he took her to his uncle's house one day and introduced her as his wife. She was quite shocked. Joe explains: "What was the point of waiting? What more answer would I get from her? Toying with the idea of love didn’t seem beneficial to any of us."

Mpho says his family loved and accepted her immediately.

He also proposed seemingly out of the blue. "He’s not a romantic," she says. "We were just lying in bed, when he casually asked me to estimate the cost of my bride price. That’s the way he proposed. He immediately organised a meeting for the negotiations. They didn’t just negotiate, they paid the bride price."

She says the challenge they have is that they're both stubborn. "Sometimes we battle to communicate. He fails to apologise. I’ve never received an apology from him."

She adds: "In 2017, I was diagnosed with a hearing problem. He’s soft-spoken and I prefer that he speaks up so I can read his lips. So he mumbles instead."

Joe says her loss is also his loss. "I got a low tone voice which I try by all means, when I speak loudly, I feel like I’m shouting at her. And that’s when she actually hears me perfectly. And that becomes a challenge as well."

What he loves about her is that she is a loving person. 

"One thing I love about him is his love for me and he has accepted me the way I am," she says. "I know that he loves me, there’s no doubt about it."

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