Residents of K'otieno village in Kochia, Homa Bay county were on Friday shocked when a stolen smartphone was recovered from the inner garments of an elderly woman at a funeral service.
It was half past two during the funeral service when Kevin Otieno, who had travelled from the city (Nairobi) realized his brand new Infinix Hot was missing.
Otieno had placed the smartphone in his front left pocket when he sat in front of the woman who was wearing a voluminous wig and only identified as Mama Ogosi.
Ogosi happens to be a lady married in the family where the funeral service was taking place. The person whose send-off everyone including yours truly attended was the father-in-law.
That meant Mama Ogosi was a very important guessed in the family being the mother of a much respected daughter-in-law to the family of the late Mzee Opiyo.
Otieno just remembered to set his phone to silent or vibration mode when he inserted his hands to an empty pocket.
He quickly checked the other pockets but there was no sign of his expensive gadget. He rolled his eyes slowly inspecting the ground around his seat to no avail.
He even asked his friend Winnie Owili who sat closely besides him before he noticed the phone had vanished.
Moments later, when the service was just about to end and the person giving his testimony would be the last one, Owili reminded Otieno to make a call connecting his line.
Otieno already fidgeting, handed back Owili's phone and read to her his 07... so she slowly but hopefully keyed in the figures confirming each was correctly typed.
No sooner had she thumbed the Call button than Otieno heard his ringtone coming from somewhere in the direction of a lady whose face he would not clearly see.
At first everyone looked in the direction of Mama Ogosi disturbed. Then got shocked including her to the realization she too forgot to at least change the settings to a more silent mode before tucking it in between the twin hills tightly held up across her chest by her bra.
It was not until Otieno shouted Mama Ogosi was a thief when the service was temporarily interrupted with everyone else especially the younger mourners rushing to where she sat apparently baying for her blood.
It took the intervention of Ogosi and his husband who is much respected in the village to calm the situation as Mama Ogosi was hurriedly rushed to the washrooms to recover the stolen phone.
When contacted later, Otieno said he had received the smartphone days ago following an order he had placed with one of the online marketing platform in Kenya.
"The phone had cost me a fortune. I just received it last week after losing my Huawei MediaPad T1 type tablet in town," said Otieno.
Ogosi however refused to comment on the issue while her husband Timothy Riaga said that was a shameful act but that it had been solved in-house.
Odira was however a worried man since he harbored ambitions to become the next Member of County Assembly (MCA) representing Kochia ward.
"It was indeed a shameful act but it has been solved. It has not affected the relationship between my wife and I however my reputation has been to an extent dragged along with it," said Odira.