When the Kenyan Olympic team arrived in Japan a few days ago, they were received by Maki Nagamatsu, a Japanese woman national, but a Kenyan in the heart.

Maki impressed the Kenyan team with not only her fluency in Swahili but also her love for Kenyan food and culture and most especially, her love for her husband Jackson Ole Seyio.

Speaking to the media during the pre-Olympics camp, the woman said she got married to the Kenyan Maasai man in 2005 and had been living in Kenya even long before her marriage.

“Naitwa Wanjiku, nimetoka Kenya na nimeishi Kenya kwa miaka ishirini na tano (I am called Wanjiku from Kenya, I have lived in Kenya for 25 years old),” she told the team which was wowed by her mastery of the Swahili language.

The witty woman who was contracted to welcome Kenyan athletes in Japan said though she is married to a Maasai, she was given a Kikuyu name, Wanjiku for living in Kenya for such a long time. Maki relocated to Japan for work in 2020 when COVID-19 hit the country while her husband is in Kenya taking care of their cattle and home.

“My husband is in Trans Mara and we have been separated for more than one year. I miss the Kenyan people so much and when corona ends, I have to go back,” she said.