Today is Valentine's Day, a day celebrated around the world for love and romance. It is on this day that the late President Hage Geingob and his wife, Monica Geingos, would have celebrated nine years of their union today. 

Despite her loss, the late President's widow describes him as her soulmate, highlighting that their bond was deeply rooted in traditional family values. 

In a special interview recorded before President Hage Geingob passed away, Geingos opened up about their journey of love, courtship, and family life.

It was in December 2022, when we shadowed the couple on their holiday at Farm Hadaloha and at Swakopmund to document their intimate moments as part of the late President's preparation for retirement.

Although their love story had been no secret to Namibians, it was their synchronicity, even behind the flashing camera lights, that told the innermost details of the Geingo bond.

Both the late statesman and Geingos have their own versions of who caught whose eye first, but this is the former First Lady's version: "I think it was during one of the World Cups, when he then came to me and said, 'You know what, I don't have a TV at home, can't I come to watch the World Cup at your house?' I had a lovely house, and I didn't see a problem, and I did not see it as a move; this was my buddy. So he'd come with his friends, and I'd make sure there was food; there was no problem. But after a while, at half-time, I'd see that the friends were disappearing one by one, but then we'd talk, and I confided in him about something that was personal, and he gave me great advice. And I was like, this guy, but you know he is an interesting person, and as women, we are also intuitive, and we know when there's a vibe. But, I started to call him uncle, because, as you know, when you are trying to demotivate an older person, you call them uncle. Then he'd send me a naughty text, and he said 'Uncle Hage', and so I realised that he did not care about these uncle stories. So the more we spoke on a personal level, the more I realised that this man was actually my soulmate."

Late-night discussions around the 2014 World Cup ultimately led to the nine years of marriage the couple enjoyed.

With the public persona of the late President and resources at hand, one naturally expected a grand romantic proposal that possibly involved closing off restaurant outlets and a dinner for two.

But, it turns out, his straightforwardness also transcended into matters of the heart, and he did not go down on one knee.

"There was no such thing. It was basically him saying, 'Look, I am not a joker, I am a serious person, and I am not trying to date you. If you want to be serious, then I am serious,' and that was really it. These are former freedom fighters; they're not romantic people. I didn't expect it from him; it's not him, but he has a love language, and his love language is really jokes; it's spending time and making sure that I am okay."

Just when you think that the description of the late President's love language was an Aha moment, here come the pet names the couple had for each other.

"The nickname he uses for me is Maria, but he uses it to disincentivize me from calling him Augus, because I call him Augus or Gus Gus, and he hates it. So he says, 'yah, if I call him Augus, then he says Maria,' but I think he has accepted being called Augus by me."

Over the years, the late Dr. Geingob and Geingos managed to keep their blended family out of the limelight.

Geingos attributes this to the discipline that her late husband instilled unapologetically from the beginning.

"And his emotional intelligence is one where we could realise that we cannot go to sleep angry with each other; we agree on this topic, but we don't start ignoring each other; we talk out our differences."

That's the abridged version of the public yet intimate love story of Geingora, where they opened up themselves to Namibians to share in their highs and lows over the years.