Left my phone in matutu - OMG!!!!!!!!!

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  Shimba Hills National Reserve, Kenya
Sunday, June 26, 2011

It was hard getting up today after such a big day yesterday. Went to ring my grandson Jaxon for his 5th birthday and couldn't find my phone…  I remembered Yasmin sending me a text and I put the phone back in the bag on the floor.  Being all crammed into the matutu  and feet all over the floor it was inevitable something would fall out.  I never thought to check when we got home, and was pitch black.  I felt sick in my stomach, as all my family’s mobiles were on it!  I got Uncle to ring the matutu owner who had got a driver to drive it for him, and there was no answer.  I knew the driver would have driven the 45 minutes back to town then probably done other pickups on the matutu route.  So chances of getting it back – nil!  Kerry had to go to town to get supplies and diesel for the lamps, so she took me in as I wanted to use the internet to email Tenille for Jaxon’s birthday.  I knew my phone would be flat, and it had the pin, so no one could use it anyway.  Long story short we kept ringing the owner, who finally answered as he was in church, and then he tried to contact the driver who was also in church somewhere else, and had said there was no phone in the matutu….  Kerry asked him if we could come and look in it and double check, but he said he’d taken it to the car wash and left it there for his boss.  We then had to wait for him to text us back to let us know which car wash.  Car washes here are by bucket.  While we waited we tried to find an internet place open but being Sunday and church on there was none.  We got the shopping and finally got a phone call by the driver saying that the car wash man had located the phone.  I felt like a beer!!!  We finally found Ronald the driver on the side of the road and he squeezed into the front seat with me and directed us to the car wash, where a lovely young man came running out with the phone.  He said he had put it aside not knowing who owned it.  I will never know if he was going to keep it as he could have rang the matutu owner when he first found it, but I think because we were so persistent in coming to look for it, he handed it over, or on the other hand, he was in the middle of washing several matutu’s so maybe needed to finish them first to be paid.  I would like to think he was honest and he did not ask for any money or anything, but I could not leave without giving him and Ronald the driver a reward as Ronald had done a lot of walking and phoning to try and locate the phone for me. I certainly was happy as getting a phone back at home would be hard enough, but in Kenya – nothing short of a miracle!!

All of this took hours by the way…. Kerry suggested we celebrate and stop off at a little hut on the way back to the orphanage which overlooks the ocean and sit and have a chai as she thought the lady sold it (on the road up into the hills).  A lovely view is on the drive up here to the orphanage through the hills, you look back down to Diani Beach and can see the Indian Ocean so beautiful.  We got to the hut but she didn’t seem keen to sell us anything, and it looked like it was just her hut she lived in.  Had some coffee at home, and charged my phone.  Couldn’t ring Jaxon as now was too late in Australia, so felt really bad, but nothing I could do.   We had had to go to several petrol stations to get the diesel for the lamps, as most had none.  Often here petrol stations run out of petrol full stop. The childrens’ tutor Mr.Coloso was here tutoring the kids, and asked if I could come to his class and teach tomorrow for the morning.  I was delighted to. These kids were up at dawn to have their breakfast and walk to Sunday school, then have their tutoring from 10am till 5pm.  Unbelievable! And not a word out of any of them.  My cold had gotten worse yesterday and I felt awful, my throat felt like razor blades were in it.  My nose was like a dripping tap.  Rachel one of the house mothers has it too. I helped with taking all the washing off and folding.  Sunday is a big wash day as all covers cushion covers, sheets etc., get washed as well as all the clothes from the beach yesterday and school from Friday.  Seemed to take forever!!!!!  Straight after tutoring the kids began polishing their school shoes and ironing their uniforms.  The older children iron the younger children’s uniforms, never with a complaint.  Just go about their work singing together.   We sat and looked at the photos we took yesterday and the kids were besotted with looking at the day we had at the beach and the animal park.  Exams start tomorrow so the children had to go to bed by 7:30pm and they were ready for it.  Kids at home have it so easy.  These kids are up at 5am every day, breakfast at 5:30am, and leaving for school to walk the 45 minutes by 6:15am. The young ones finish school at lunch time, and the older ones come home at 5pm.  Such a long day.  There is only 1 break, and that is lunch.  Rice is cooked (donated) for the children for lunch at school. That is 1 small bowl.  There is nothing else all day, and that is probably the only meal most of the  kids get… Tonight was chicken and chips, but, I only had the chips and salad.   Uncle Raymond killed 3 chooks for tea and I said I’d pluck and gut them for him.  They work such long hours.Something I had done at least 1 Sunday a month growing up for Sunday dinner.  I used to chop their heads off back then, but didn’t offer to do that.  I helped do the mountain of potatoes to peel for 15 kids plus the staff, as no packets of frozen chips here.  I plucked the chooks, but Uncle Julius gutted them as he didn’t know I was going to do it.  I wasn’t disappointed…  Having fed the chooks while here, it took me back to my childhood chooks as pets and having to kill them for food, and I couldn’t honestly eat the chicken tonight, as I looked into the chookhouse in the afternoon and wondered who’d be next for Tuesday night’s chicken pilau?

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Where we wash our hands	Mamma Siriana	The mess I cleaned up which is the library	Staffroom at school where I taught
The kitchen	Some of the orphanage children	This is what the kids learn in	My 'lovely' drawing of the Gruffalo
A footprint we found at the animal park	Tumaini	The kids at school entranced with me..

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