Valentine's Day special: Alex and Sarah's Love story

I remember 5th November 2016 like it was just the other day. I had just arrived in Israel for my Master’s in Plant Science under the Manna Center for Food Safety and Security. I arrived very late in the night, so I didn't get a chance to meet people that night.

The following morning, I took a stroll around Moshav Ein Yahav in the Arava to meet my classmates. During my stroll, I was met by very enthusiastic Kenyan students and Arava immediately began to feel like home!

My classmates were from all over, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria and Vietnam, I knew then, that I was going to have the most interesting year ahead.

So, I am out there, chatting with my country mates and then from nowhere comes this tall, very handsome young man. My jaw drops for a moment, and then I pull myself together. He greets me and introduces himself as Alexandre (my Alex).

My heart is now beating so irregularly, and I am giggling awkwardly. Well, nice to meet you Alexandre. He winked at me, he denies winking, but I swear I saw him wink, or maybe it was just in my head. He sits with us for a while and then leaves.

Later in the day the Kenyan students decide to show me around and Alex joins the walk, this was off to a very good start. I asked a lot about his country, he seemed to know so much more history of my country than I knew of his. The stories were really interesting, but it was getting late and everyone had to go back to their hostel.

Coincidentally or not, Alex and I were placed to do our practicum at MOP Research and Development center and we were both so excited.

We enjoyed rides to MOP Hatseva and back every single day. We enjoyed working together in the lab and became study buddies and grew very close, he became my best friend!

Everyone at MOP Hatseva kept asking if we were a couple, at that point we hadn’t started dating yet, but they could see our eyes sparkle when we were together.

Our friendship blossomed into something so beautiful.  Alex is a funny person, so he made me laugh a lot. What attracted me most to him is his kindness and care.

On February of 2017, as we were having an evening walk around the Moshav, Alex asked me to be his girlfriend. The sunset was very beautiful that evening, it was the perfect day to say Yes!

We had a wonderful time together in the Arava, enjoyed every bit of it!

Who knew I’d meet my perfect match in the middle of a desert?

We traveled all around Israel together and everything felt so right.

In my heart I knew he is the one, so when we visited home (Kenya and Rwanda) after the year was over, I invited Alex to meet my parents in Kenya.

My parents were very resistant at first, because Alex was from Rwanda and they didn’t know much about the Rwandese ways of life. I convinced them to meet Alex first and we would discuss my future with him after the meeting.

Alex visited my family in April 2018 and both my mum and dad loved and adored him. I saw him take selfies with my dad (may he Rest In Peace) and I knew then, that our relationship was approved. They gave us their blessings and we were the happiest we ever been.

We traveled back to Israel together for our research year and everything was just working out perfectly. In June 2019 we graduated in a colorful graduation and left for home. This was a sad time because we were both leaving for our own countries, but we knew in our hearts that we wanted to be with each other.

We got separated for one year 2019-2020 while I was doing an internship in the USA, but our love remained so solid. While doing my internship, Alex was supposed to come visit, but Covid-19 happened so he wasn’t able to come. He couldn’t wait anymore to ask me to be his wife! So he did it online in the most beautiful way.

When I came back home from the USA he took me to meet his family, very amazing people, they were so kind to me and warmly invited me into their family. His dad (May he Rest In Peace) took me around their very big banana plantation and kept reminding us to be kind to each other at all times. “A good and working relationships is founded on respect for each other“, he said.

Alex moved to Kenya, as we both had found jobs there. Due to the pandemic, we couldn’t do a big traditional African wedding, so we went for the court wedding, that was small and beautiful, filled with love, family, friends and happiness!

We are excited about our future together and we can’t be grateful enough for Manna Centre and AICAT. They allowed us meet, and gave me the most amazing husband!

We plan on visiting Israel to relive our memories!