She Crossed Borders For Love Found Betrayal Instead

He greeted me with a "hello," and I replied with a "hi."

That was our first day. He said, “Good to meet you here,” but I didn’t reply because guys who usually slide into my DMs tend to be a waste of time. The following day, he mentioned, “What you said in there is true, but I don’t understand why everyone is on your case.” I asked, “Sorry, what did I say in where?” He clarified, “What you wrote in the group’s timeline.” I replied, “Oh, you’re in that group too?”

That’s how our conversations began.

Every day, he would drop by my inbox to say or ask something. I was kind enough to engage with him whenever he reached out. Through our discussions, I realized he had a profound perspective I hadn’t considered before. I admired his intellect. He was thoughtful in his opinions and humble enough to admit when he was wrong.

I liked him. In fact, I appreciate people who can engage me in intellectual discussions. We moved beyond the group topics to discuss the books we had read, and surprisingly, he had read many of the same ones and agreed with me on several controversial issues. He asked for my contact information, and I didn’t hesitate to share. He remarked, “Oh, you’re not in Ghana?” I replied, “I’m Kenyan and live in Kenya.” He said, “But your name doesn’t sound Kenyan.” I explained, “That’s not my real name.”

So, we transitioned our conversations from Facebook Messenger to WhatsApp. He called a few times, and we had some video chats. He was charming. His intelligence and approach to issues made me lower my defenses. When he proposed, I told him, “But you don’t even know me.” He replied, “If knowing someone means seeing or meeting them physically, then yes, I don’t know you. But if it takes conversation and spending time together to truly know someone, then dear, I know you.”

That was sweet and true.

I asked, “You’re in Ghana, and I’m in Kenya. How do we make this work?” He answered, “When we’re sure about each other, I can come to you, or you can come to me. We can decide who moves where later when we’re ready to make things permanent.” He always spoke with the future in mind when discussing us. I loved that. I loved him, so I said yes.

That night, he called me on video with a glass of champagne in hand. He said, “Let’s celebrate this. Go get yourself a glass.” I fetched a wine glass and sat in front of my screen, watching him express beautiful sentiments about our love and the bright future ahead of us. He poured himself some champagne and encouraged me to lower my glass and join him. It was amusing and alluring. He said, “Just imagine you have a drink in your glass, and let’s toast to our future.”

I raised my glass, and he did the same. We both shouted, “Cheers,” as we clinked our glasses toward the screens. He drank his champagne while I inhaled the air in my glass. It was one of the most beautiful imaginary moments I’ve ever experienced. Life felt surreal. Love was created and savored in our fantasies. For once, fantasy wasn’t just for a child dreaming of wings or wanting to be Cinderella dancing with a prince. It was for us—two mature adults who should have outgrown such notions.

We were content, and our love continued to flourish.

I’m not naive when it comes to love and matters of the heart. I had my first relationship at just seventeen. Now at twenty-nine, I’ve dealt with three tumultuous heartbreaks that nearly drove me mad, and there have been men who came and went without a trace. I understand love, pain, and heartbreak. I reached a point where I had to build walls around my heart for its protection. Love and relationships aren’t new to me, but this one felt different. Its excitement stemmed from how it diverged from my past experiences.

In early January, we began making plans to meet. He was supposed to be in Kenya for Valentine’s Day, but work commitments prevented that. Financially, he wasn’t ready, and I wasn’t in a better position either. We eventually agreed that I would travel to Ghana in March. It was meant to be early March, but unforeseen circumstances delayed my trip. He sent me money for my flight and hotel accommodation for a day.

We should have heeded the signs of the times. COVID-19 was beginning to spread across Africa, and many things were changing rapidly. We ignored the world’s warnings. We had made numerous plans that fell through, so we were determined not to let this one fail. I traveled from Kenya and arrived in Ghana in late March. At the airport, the pilot informed us that we would be quarantined for fourteen days. At the terminal, we learned that the directive had come from the government just a day before our arrival.

I started to panic. I called him to explain the situation, and he tried to reassure me. He said, “This is getting serious, but stay calm until you see how it unfolds.” The outcome was that we were ushered onto a bus and taken to a hotel in Accra. We were told not to worry because we were in safe hands. “My trip to Ghana was supposed to last fourteen days, but now I’m spending all of it in quarantine.”

There wasn’t much I could do. I found comfort in being closer to the one I loved. Back in Kenya, the distance felt immense, but in Ghana, every conversation or video call made it seem like he was just next door. I only had to open my door for him to greet me. That thought was comforting and kept me going.

We spoke first thing in the morning. I would watch movies, eat, and sleep. In the afternoon, he would call me on video. When the medical team came around, I shared my experiences with him—the various tests I had to undergo and the accompanying anxiety. Some days, I felt anxious. “What if I test positive? Does that mean I’ll never get to see him?” But as the days passed, I realized there were only three days left of my quarantine. My results had come back negative, but I still had to wait for the final test before I could be cleared.

Two Days Left…

He called me in the morning to say he had to handle something at work and wouldn’t be able to talk until the evening. That was tough, but I accepted it. However, he didn’t call that afternoon as promised. Evening came, and still no call. I reached out to him on WhatsApp, but he didn’t respond. All my messages went unread. I went to bed hoping to wake up to his voice the next day.

One Day Left…

He still hadn’t replied to my messages or called. “I’m leaving this place tomorrow, and I can’t reach him?” I tried every means I could think of to contact him, but all I encountered were dead ends. “What’s going on?” Suddenly, an overwhelming fear gripped me. It felt like all my hopes and dreams were crumbling, and there was nothing I could do.

Leaving the Quarantine Hotel…

The first thing I did upon waking was call his phone. It was switched off. I sent him a message: “Today, I’m leaving the quarantine hotel, and I have nowhere to go. You know I can’t return to my country until this is resolved. If you see this, please get back to me. I’m in a desperate situation.” I sent it via WhatsApp, Messenger, and as a text message. No response.

Soon, the authorities knocked on my door, instructing me to prepare to leave.

I had no idea where I was going, but I couldn’t stay at the hotel, so I packed my things and boarded the bus. There was an elderly woman, around fifty or fifty-eight years old, who had traveled on the same flight. I sat next to her on the bus from the airport to the hotel. When leaving the hotel, I spotted her again and rushed over to say hello. She greeted me back, her Kenyan accent evident. She looked into my eyes and asked, “Are you okay?” I shook my head, and suddenly, tears streamed down my cheeks.

She said, “Hey, it’s over now. We’re going home. Why are you crying? You should be happy.”

She assumed it was the stress of being quarantined that upset me. She asked, “Where are you going?” I was too choked with tears to respond. The bus arrived, and we were instructed to board. She said, “Stay with me. You can sit next to me so we can talk.” On the bus, she asked again in Kikuyu, “Where are you going?” I replied, “I don’t know. I have nowhere to go.”

I shared my story with her—how love brought me from Kenya to Ghana and left me stranded. She was shocked and concerned. She said, “There might be something wrong with your man. Ghanaian men aren’t like that. I hope you have his name and some details. I’ll help you find him.”

It was this woman who took me in and offered me a place to stay. Her story mirrored mine. She was a Kenyan woman married to a Ghanaian businessman. She recounted how they met at a business forum in Nakuru and began dating from there. The first time she traveled to Accra, she felt just like me—lost and in love with a man she barely knew. She spent a week with him and immediately knew she wouldn’t return to Kenya.

They married a few years later and settled in Ghana, though she visits Kenya whenever possible. She shared my story with her husband, who laughed as if it were no big deal. He said, “I hope there’s nothing wrong and that we can find him because young men these days can play foolish games with people’s emotions.”

We started by looking into where he worked.

I told the woman what he had said about his job and the company he worked for. We went online, found some numbers, and began calling. We tried repeatedly, but no one answered. “They probably aren’t working due to the lockdown,” she suggested. The next day, we drove to his workplace to see if we could find someone to talk to, but the offices were locked. We returned home.

The woman asked again, “Did he give you any other information that could help us find someone who knows him?” I appreciated her determination to help. That day, I went through our chats from the beginning to see if I could find anything useful. That’s when I discovered he had blocked me on Facebook and WhatsApp too.

My heart sank. My hands trembled, and a flood of chaotic thoughts filled my mind. “If he could do that, then everything happening is intentional. I shouldn’t waste my time or my guardians’ time anymore.” I shared my discovery with her. The woman remained optimistic, “Something isn’t right. You mentioned he bought your ticket, right? How could he do that if he knew he wouldn’t meet you? Something doesn’t add up. Let’s keep searching.”

Her husband was very straightforward with me. Perhaps it was because he was a man and understood how men operate. He said, “My daughter, it’s good to have hope, but at some point, you have to let go and focus on moving forward. That boy is foolish. He doesn’t deserve the time you’re wasting on him. Let’s start thinking about how to get you back to Kenya.”

I’ve spent four weeks in Ghana, and I couldn’t be in better hands. These two don’t have their own children, so I’ve become their child. The man often sees me and playfully teases me. He even gave me a local name that means “Love is death.” He jokes, “If you’re looking to marry a Ghanaian boy, there are plenty around. Once the lockdown is over, I can find you someone who won’t run away.” His teasing never stops, and I love it because every time I laugh, a piece of my brokenness mends. I’ve started laughing more, and soon I’ll be completely healed and whole again.

—Agnes

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