The Night I Became a Wedding Photographer Without a Camera

After high school, my fourth job was as a tea boy at a small office in town.

If you don't know what a tea boy does, I honestly don't know how to explain it to Gen-Z's. Back then, we didn't have those fancy coffee machines. We had sufuria. Real sufuria. The kind that got black on the bottom and made your tea taste like metal and determination. I walked between offices, collecting empty cups, making tea, and listening to conversations I wasn't supposed to hear.

The pay was two hundred and fifty bob per day.

One Saturday, everything changed.

That Saturday started like any other Saturday.

I was home, counting my remaining salary. I had exactly three hundred bob to last me until Monday.

Then my phone rang.

It was my cousin, Kevin.

"Jay! Where are you?"

"Home. Why?"

"You're a photographer, right?"

"Kevin, I don't own a—"

"Perfect! I need you at a wedding. Now. There's an emergency."

"What emergency?"

"The photographer didn't show up!"

"Kevin, I told you, I don't—"

"Just come! Bring your camera!"

"I don't have a—"

The line went dead.

Have you ever been invited to a wedding you weren't supposed to attend?

I have.

I arrived at the venue—a church in Eastlands—looking like I had just crawled out of a matatu accident.

Kevin was at the entrance, sweating like he had run from Nairobi to Mombasa.

"Jay! You made it!"

"Kevin, where's the camera?"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN WHERE'S THE CAMERA? YOU'RE THE PHOTOGRAPHER!"

"I don't have a camera!"

Kevin stared at me.

I stared at Kevin.

The bride walked past us. She was beautiful. White dress. Smiling. Completely unaware that her wedding photos were about to be taken with a Nokia 3310.

"Jay," Kevin whispered, "you have to do something."

"What do you want me to do? Draw the wedding?"

"YES!"

"Draw?"

"Get a sketchbook! Draw!"

"Kevin, this is not—"

"The bride's family is from Meru. You know how Meru people are. If they find out there's no photographer, there will be blood."

He wasn't wrong.

I ran to...