Enjoy Patience and Peter’s beautiful love story❤️

Patience Jongerius (LaMahlalela) was born in Manzini and raised in Pigg’s Peak and later moved back to Manzini. Peter Jongerius is from Canada and had been living and working there up until the time he met Patience. They are currently based in Mbabane where they’re both involved in the running of Patience’s cleaning, landscaping and real estate businesses.  

They got married on August 16, 2015. Both have grown-up children from their previous marriages — Patience has a son; and Peter has a son and daughter who are based in Canada.

How They Met

Patience and Peter’s paths first crossed in Malawi, in January 2011. Peter was in Malawi visiting his brother who was living there. Patience was in Malawi working for the British Council, an organisation that she first worked for in Swaziland, and when its local offices closed she was transferred to Namibia and later to Malawi. During her time there she became friends with Peter’s brother. Some time later Peter returned to Malawi to sort out his brother’s estate after he received the news that his brother had fallen ill and subsequently passed away. During this visit, he heard that Patience was preparing to move back to Swaziland. He gallantly volunteered to help her relocate as he felt that she could do with an extra hand. Peter points out that he saw this as an opportunity to start a new life, especially as he was tired of living in Canada, and as a retiree therefore felt ready for a change. 

Peter candidly states that for him it was love at first sight; whereas Patience says that falling in love with Peter was a gradual process, yet she felt instantly comfortable in his company. Peter says that he was attracted to Patience because of her outgoing personality, superb culinary skills, and thought she was an attractive lady. Recalling the first time she met him, Patience says she was struck by Peter’s easy-going nature: “I found him sleeping on a sponge mattress in the sitting room, and I said: ‘What’s going on here?’ But then I thought; ‘Oh, what an easy-going person, not demanding at all’; and after observing him so more she found him to be a “pleasant person.”

Getting Better Acquainted

Together with Patience’s son, the couple who were just friends at the time traveled down to Eswatini in October 2013. To turn the trip into an adventure for Peter, Patience decided that they should drive to enable Peter to see a bit of southern Africa. The trip took four days; from Malawi they drove through Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and South Africa (via Kruger National Park) before arriving in Eswatini. 

Patience’s immediate plan upon reaching Eswatini was to begin renovating the house she had brought before leaving the country as she says it needed a lot of work and attention. It took seven months to complete the task, and in that time she and Peter got to know more about each other as they worked on the house together. “We really got to learn to work with each other, which we found was surprisingly easy as we didn’t have many disagreements.” She points out that if a disagreement arose, they would deal with it by putting the matter aside for some time, and later revisit it with the aim of reaching a compromise. This creative reconstruction process helped the couple who at this time had officially begun dating bond even more as they both share a love for remodelling. The project even gave rise to the idea to start a landscaping business.

The Path to Marriage

Patience says transitioning from friends to lovers was something that happened naturally: “It really felt like we were supposed to be together.” Even Patience’s mother echoed the same sentiment by observing how she and Peter appeared like they were meant for each other. Both of them also believed in the importance of marriage. Peter relates that he was raised a Roman Catholic; hence it was important to make his relationship with Patience official through matrimony.

Patience also felt that marriage was something important for a couple to undertake, especially considering the fact that her previous relationship of many years (following her divorce from the father of her son) was minus marital ties; hence, there was that missing something. Her traditional outlook also came into play this time around as she felt that if two people decided to stay together, then they must get married as without the official stamp of marriage the relationship is temporary and incomplete. “So when he brought up the idea of getting married I was okay with it because I didn’t really want to be in another relationship where somebody wants to call me his ‘wife’ and I keep reminding him that: ‘I am not your wife.’”

Challenges

Faced with the fact that Peter was Canadian, they knew that they had to deal with the unavoidable immigration hassles and paper work. For example, they relate an incident when Peter was detained at the Ngwenya/Oshoek border on their return from Ermelo; reason being that   he had overstayed his stay in Eswatini. The immigration officials pointed out to them that Peter had to submit to having his fingerprints taken and pay a E 5000 fine. Besides the steep fine, Patience was alarmed at the consequences of Peter’s finger-printing which would mean he could incur a criminal record. Such would impede on their plans to acquire a permit to get married. Or, even worse, Peter might be deported. Fortunately, they were able to sort out the problem and move ahead with their plans.

Second Time Around

Given that this was a second marriage for both of them, Patience relates how this time around she entered into the marriage knowing exactly what she wanted and being resolved to the task of clearly communicating her needs. Previously she felt that she had allowed some things to happen because she wasn’t firm enough in communicating what she wanted. Responding to the question of how this current relationship differs from the previous one, Peter also emphasises the aspect of communication and he feels that this time around it is a lot better. Both agree that open dialogue and listening to each other have played a key role in maintaining their relationship. Patience says, “With Peter we talk, sometimes it’s uncomfortable but things have to be put on the table.”

They narrate the few things that happened as they were going through the process of finalising their marriage. One of which was having to find people who were older than them to give them permission to marry as per the requirements for applying for a marriage license. This requirement was quite interesting given that they are middle-aged. Peter remarks about the challenge of finding anyone at all as he didn’t know that many people in the country then. Fortunately, however, he eventually found an old friend of his brother who was older than him.

Once the paperwork was finalised, they got married at Edladleni Restaurant in an intimate wedding ceremony that consisted of 20 people (inclusive of the bride and groom). However, after the wedding another issue occurred where their marriage certificate took a long to reach them. In an effort to try understand what happen they had to find the pastor who officiated their wedding and also submitted their paperwork to the authorities, but this proved to be quite the challenge as the pastor in question became hard, if not impossible, to track down. Looking back on that period, Patience remarks how it was a trying time; but Peter assuming a lighter tone says: “It was fun too, it was interesting, you couldn’t get stressed over it because that wouldn’t have served any good.”

We end our interview on a humorous note, with Patience sharing some of the comments she’s heard when she’s out with Peter. “People will say to me: ‘Please find me one (a white man) too.’ I’m like, ‘You don’t go looking for a person of a different colour; you just meet and fall in love with them.’ So I wouldn’t know where to look for one because it’s not like they are sitting at a shop somewhere.”

Indeed when it comes to matters of heart sometimes its better to just let love find you❤️