Lost And Found

Mambo! Sorry it has been so long since my last post -- now that we've re-started the after-school program for the kids in the neighborhood I have less time free to come into town to the Internet cafe. Also, there have been electricity and Internet problems in town for the past few days and many Internet cafes have had no service. Given that I've mentioned the after-school program, I will devote this blog to the crisis we had this week, only a couple of hours before Monika had to leave for the airport (for her 2-month visit home, in Canada). We run the program for the kids every Monday and Thursday from 2-4pm. This is the second week of the program and the number of kids is growing. The flyers we put up around the neighborhood said that the program was for kids aged 3-8, but I think our youngest is 2 1/2 and our oldest is 12 (not counting Edward, the 15-year old brother of one of the kids who came and helped out one day). We have different activities for the kids -- practicing their ABCs and their numbers, coloring, doing a puzzle, playing with Barbies, jumping rope, bowling, playing with match box cars, etc. If I had to choose their favorite right now, I'd say it was the jumping rope (I think that's my favorite too). Anyway, one of our students brought her son (let's call him "J") for the first time and told me she would come to pick him up (some of the kids walk home on their own). When 4 o'clock rolled around, we accompanied the children outside the gate -- both those that walk home on their own because they live so close to us, and those whose older sisters had come to pick them up. Everything seemed fine. When everyone had gone, we went back into the house. About an hour later, J's mom showed up to fetch him. OH MY GOSH! Where was J? I didn't even remember walking out of the gate with him. My heart sunk. Where could he have gone? Why didn't he wait with us if his mom wasn't there? How could I have forgotten that his mom was coming to get him? He was definitely missing. We were able to reach the two moms of the group of kids that left on foot with the two older sisters, but J was not with them. Luckily, we had taken some photos that day and J was in two of the photos. I went around the university area with Lusajo, showing the photo. Some kids in the stadium said that they had seen a small boy crying on a nearby path and then saw him again with a man. In the States, this type of information would not bode well! Nobody else had seen the boy, not even the security people at the university gate. In the meantime, we sent the mom home in a taxi in the hopes that somebody would have found J and located his home. Unfortunately, his mom doesn't have a phone so there was no easy way for us to keep in contact with her. We just had to wait for news. Lusajo called the police station, but J was not there. So we waited... and waited... and waited (as the sun went down and I thought of J walking around, lost in the dark). Monika's departure was getting closer and closer. I was beside myself. Then the phone rang. It was J's mom -- a man had found him and managed to locate where he lived. I really can't express in words the feelings that went through me then and that still go through me now when I think of what happened. I learned many lessons that day.
 
Kwaheri,
Victoria

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