Long-winded moral dillemma

So we were on a night bus heading back from Coffee Bay. We were a small group of only 3 umlungu's (Zulu for "white person") on a double decker Greyhound. People are getting on and off periodically and the lights go on and off at every stop. About half way through the journey, a cell phone in the seat next to us begins to ring. And not just once. Someone is calling the cell phone EVERY MINUTE. Someone had been sitting there previously, but we dont know where they went. We try to ignore the phone, but it continues to ring and ring and ring. We look for the missing passenger to tell him that his phone is left behind, but he is no where to be found. Finally, after another 20 minutes of incessant annoying cell phone noise, I get up to turn the thing off.

Now, we can sleep. We doze for the rest of the trip and none of us wake up until we are about 20 minutes outside Durban. I notice that the cell phone is still sitting on the bus seat. Then it hits me. Someone had accidentlally left their phone on the bus at one of the earlier stops. It was the owner that was apparently calling non-stop. He was hoping another passenger would pick up. It seems like an odd way to get your cell phone back as I wasnt about to answer the ringing phone. But I suppose it was the owner's only hope.

So my first thought is to turn the phone back on and simply call the number that had been calling the phone and tell the owner what had happened. But, like most phones in SA, it asks for a PIN number before switching the phone back on. Essentially, unless you replace the SIM card inside the phone (which only cost about $3), the phone is locked.

So we find oursleves faced with a moral dillema. There is a nice, fairly new Nokia cell phone sitting on the seat next to us. Its clearly been left by a passenger, but there really is no way to contact the passenger or even find out who they are. If we could, we would but there really was no way to identify this person. If we leave it on the seat, it will inevitably go into some nationwide lost cell phone box and the chances of it ever going back to the owner are slim. Likely, the bus driver or cleaning crew will simply pocket the phone as they too know it will never be returned to the owner.

So what do you do? You could leave it there, and hope for the best. Turn the phone into the bus driver. You could keep the phone, pop in your SIM card, and replace totally outdated piece of crap phone you have now. To me, these were the only options, and I was just going to leave the phone there.

Luckily though, Kylie and another girl, Kate from California, had a better idea. Grab the phone, buy a new SIM card and charger for about $10, and give the whole package to a deserving party. Perhaps a sick AIDS patient at the clinic. Kind of like a Robin Hood plan. I wanst convinced that this was the best idea, but it seemed better than leaving it for the bus driver. So I committed my first act of theft in South Africa. When no one was looking, I slid the phone into my bag. No one noticed.

It turned out to be a great idea. After making sure the phone worked and replacing the SIM card and charger, I brought the phone to one of our referred patients in the hospital. She had been stuck in the medical ward for 2 weeks with no books, magazines, or any way to contact her family. I knew she had no cell phone because I took her history and referred her. This is a girl who has been sitting on a hospital bed with diarrhea, CMV retinitis, TB throughout her abdomen, and had about a 50/50 chance of leaving the hospital alive. Yet, she seemed a very kind and honest girl, well deserving of someway to contact her family while in the hospital.

I went to visit her today, and brought her the phone. She was elated. I really thought she was going to cry right there. I was almost embarrassed. I was happy, she was happy. The only person to lose here was the poor guy who left his phone on the bus. I have to commend Kylie for thinking outside of the box on this one and coming up with a good idea.

This patient was one of the first AIDS patients I interviewed and took a thorough history on, as I mentioned I would do on this blog previously. She has a really amazing story, but is not out of the woods yet (still in the hospital and not. I will write more about her, but will be sure to link back to this post when I do.