Yesterday I traveled from Seronga to Sepopa (1.25 hours over water, about 45kms as the crow flies from Seronga, but there’s no crows providing public transport, so over the river we go) via the clinic boat ambulance, and was then picked up by the Sepopa Clinic ambulance to travel the rest of the way by road to the district offices at Gumare. This route cuts the travel time on the journey from anywhere in the arena of 3 to 7 hours one way by road down to between 2.5 to 4 hours with the water/road combo. It’s definitely the way to travel, and I was excited to be taking the boat again as our ambulance boat has been in the shop for about 10 months.
Maybe it was my excitement over being on the water again, perhaps it was my rush to call the Sepopa ambulance to collect us, but somewhere in the transfer from the boat to the truck I managed to drop my phone. My very expensive, internet enabled, bright orange Sony Ericsson that had been a gift from a friend. I had just decried the fact that my phone was one of a kind in the delta, and was probably going to get stolen on my blog the day before.
I didn’t realize I had dropped it until I got to Gumare and was going to take the Sepopa clinic ambulance driver’s number so I could call to find out when they would be heading back to Sepopa. I couldn’t find my phone anywhere. I could hardly believe that I’d made the hour long journey without needing to text someone, but that’s apparently what happened. Panicked, I dumped the contents of my bag out onto the white sandy road in Gumare and began freaking out.
The nurse, the driver, and villagers in the back of the ambulance immediately began to look around and offer their phones to help me. A women riding in the front of the ambulance whom I didn’t know was already asking my number, which she then reported was ringing. Someone answered. I dashed to the back of the ambulance to see who had it. None of them. I ran back to the woman, confused. She handed me her phone. I asked the man who had answered how he had gotten my phone, completely bewildered at this point. It was Tom-Tom, a guy from Seronga who works for the Okavango Houseboats. They do transfers for clients who don’t fly into Seronga across the water from Sepopa to their various houseboats and bush camps along the river and into Seronga. He told me he found and recognized it was my phone and would be taking it to the police in Seronga.
It turns out my friend the police sergeant, who I’ve been working with on the Men’s Sector Committee as well as the social worker had by chance called my phone and had spoken to Tom-Tom and told him to bring it to the police station when he returned to Seronga. The police sergeant continued to answer the phone for the rest of the day, because, he explained, he didn’t want someone to call and get my voicemail and be worried, because he knows that Lorato always answers her phone (I think this caused a little confusion/alarm for subsequent people who called my phone only to have it answered by the Seronga Police, but we’ve got all that cleared up).
My phone was missing for less than an hour, and was waiting for me (along with some teasing) at the police station when I returned to Seronga that evening. From the time it got lost until I was reunited with it, no less than 4 people from Seronga area came up to me (in Gumare, Sepopa, at the hoof and mouth gate near Ikgoga) to inform me (in various languages) that my phone was at the police station in Seronga.
When I was reunited with my bright phone (which in the end, despite me trying to be discrete about having such a flash phone, was the reason it was returned to me) I called the managers of the Houseboats and the owner in Maun to compliment them on having such a trustworthy and honest employee, as well as thanking Tom-Tom and giving him a small reward and a note.
I was so touched by my village’s concern for me and amazed that my phone, which is likely worth at least a month’s wages around these parts, was returned to me. Thank you, Seronga. Bottom line? I heart Seronga and Seronga hearts me! (no matter what I say next week... Or tomorrow!)
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