Wambui is a different kind of girl. She is a girl who speaks with emotion and to my pleasant surprise, she writes with emotion.

I realise, with this journey,  there are moments that I am full of confidence about what I am finding out, and about the data collection process, and the writing process, but the confidence is private. I would rather not let people in  and I would rather they do not see ‘yet’ what I am writing. Not yet. I want to have a perfect document before I can share it.

But my friend Wambui asked me to send what I have to her, give her a few days, and she would read and give me feedback! She has  just completed the doctoral journey herself. I think she is brilliant  but I jumped on her request more because I felt safe in her brilliance rather than intimidated. I also trust her thoughts and I know she would not withhold a critic on my thinking.

So as I read through her comments this morning, I welled up for two reasons: that she took time to read; and that she thinks I have something to say (or at least she made it look like I did 🙂 ). Her use of superlatives  and the encouragement for bolder assertions on my discoveries, the rich commentary, and her drawing my attention to perspectives I had not quite thought about, are simply fodder to stuff on at my level. And then she encouraged that we can co-publish. And I could hear the claps and whistles urging me on, ever so genuinely, in the commentary.

Why is it a big deal that Wambui read my work? Because she is busy and she still found time to. Because as I wrote the proposal, I knew many well meaning people who could have  read but didn’t, because they had tight schedules. It is a big deal because it is! And it is a big deal that she read and wrote meaningful comments barely a week after I sent it to her. That is a big deal!

I am off to get a cup of tea. But there’s an extra spring in my foot, because of my friend Wambui.