missing 'phone (or worse)

"He's lost his 'phone," I tell my mother-in-law. I need the number of a woman last seen at the swimming pool where my husband went to pick up our son (and presumably dropped the thing).

Losing a phone is a nightmare in our line of business. It's not so much the handset -- which can be replaced easily these days -- but the number. In a country where suspicion is rising, contacts often only answer the 'phone if they recognise your number.

It could take months to rebuild the trust -- and the phone book. My mother-in-law can hear the desperation in my voice.

"I just heard a terrible story," she says. "You remember DT? He used to come to stay with us."

"He was on a houseboat in Kariba," she says. Turns out he'd taken a small boat out fishing with other holidaymakers. As often happens, the boat drifted into weeds. He leant over to pull the motor into the boat ("As you have to," my mother-in-law points out. My father-in-law has done it lots of times) -- and a crocodile grabbed him by the arm. The boatman grabbed him round the middle, they tussled...and the crocodile got away with the hand.

"You get blase," she says. There was a time when somebody got their hand taken dipping their fingers in the way to get the maggot juice off. "After that happened we all put pails of water inside the boats. But then we stopped."

Sometimes I wonder if it's just us whites who get blase, who underestimate the ferocity of Zimbabwe's wildlife? I stayed in a lion park last year with Shona friends -- two middle-aged women -- who were extremely suspicious of game drives.

"Better to lose a 'phone than a hand," she finishes.

Later, we find the 'phone (under the passenger seat) and I'm doubly grateful.