I dropped my ID.

Good day steaming steemians, I hope you are all doing great today. I would first of all like to thank @wase1234 for the invite to this contest which on one part is a frightening memory and on the other part, a reassuring one. Frightening because losing your identification card in my country is a night mare, considering that the procedure to make one is nearly impossible. A reassuring one because, my experience made me understand that we still have good people out there.

My ordeal happened about 3 years ago. On this faithful day my junior brother and I drove to the park to receive our mother who traveled from Foumbot in the western region to Douala for a visit. I usually had the bad reflex of dropping my wallet which on this day contained my ID, credit cards, business cards, contacts, my passport size photograph, not so much money (7000FCFA), on my seat between my laps. That's exactly what I did that day.

Me showing how I used to place my wallet between my laps in the car

It was about 7pm when we arrived at the park. On alighting from the car, I had totally forgotten that I placed my wallet on the seat between my laps. So as I was getting out I inadvertently pushed it out onto the ground. We found mum, got all the bags of food she brought into the car trunk and drove off home. When we got home, out of reflex I reached for my wallet in my pocket and it was no where to be found. I immediately shouted; "I dropped my ID". Despite the fact that there were other things in that wallet apart from my ID, only my ID was a concern to me, since the other things could easily be retrieved. Whereas the ID card procedure could take me even 2 years to finally have another one.

After dropping mum and the things home, my brother and I immediately drove back to town in search of the wallet. We got there and searched to no avail and returned home very sad and disappointed. That night was a very long one for me.

The next day at about 9am, when I was preparing to get to my bank to signal the loss and block my credit cards, I received a call from a strange number. The person on the other side of the phone called my three names and introduced himself as the commissioner of the head of the gendarmes and that my attention was needed at the station. In a split second I felt my heart literally stopped beating and dropped into my stomach because i don't like having anything to do with them. I started thinking what crime I could have committed that will warrant a gendarm to be calling me this early. All these thoughts happened within a fraction of a second. Then the man continued by saying that some young boys picked up a wallet and my ID was in it so they brought it to him. That instant, I felt a broad smile fill my face and a rush of warm blood cover my body.

Without wasting a second, I was already on my way. When I got there, my wallet was handed over to me and to my greatest amazement everything was inside including the money. I was so happy and asked if I could see the boys. I thanked them immensely and gave them all the money that was in the wallet coz that wasn't my main concern and that was the most I could do at that instant. I made a resolution never to use wallets again because that wasn't even my first mishap. Since then, I've stuck to using sling or crossbody bags to carry along my documents.

Me in the picture with my sling bag

I returned home that day very impressed and hopeful because I knew no matter the state of our communities and country, we still got very good and honest people. We shouldn't loose hope so easily in ourselves and our nation because God can still use you and I or some one out there to bring that change we long for.

Thank you for reading through and I hope it was interesting and it equally made you hopeful for our nations.

Have a blessed day ahead as I invite @iloveakuma, @nuahfabian, @shance-light to this contest.

@tignoga