On the day of the fire somehow we were restless, by this I mean the kids and me mainly. Not knowing how to entertain ourselves, they had had enough of me and I wanted peace and quiet. That's why it's surprising that we were all together when the fire started - I can only thank God for that !
I decided to play solitaire in the upstairs parlour, the armchairs so low I packed 3 seat cushions on one armchair and used a garden chair as my table.
Minutes before the fire ...
Happily entertaining myself the kids descended - thats my 3 girls and my niece - ok their ages start at 14, 11, 10 and 9. All these girls are independent making drinks and cooking noodles for themselves on the gas stove in the upstairs kitchen. The term kitchen is used loosely, it is just a room, there was no sink and no running water in the house, anywhere! All water is carried up daily from the outside reservoir in the compound, to the kitchen and bathroom areas. And therein lies the clue to the fire. And the difficulty to extinguish it.
Mooching around as dinner wasn't ready (my sisters -in-law were cooking outside tonight) the kids wanted hot drinks - Milo, chocolate and I had tea - good old British cup of tea of course ...
One of the kids went to make the drinks and an almighty scream really did frighten the life out of me .... ''fire'' another blood curdling scream ''fire, fire get out''.
The wall behind my chair has cracked from the heat, 
the socket in which my phone was plugged
to the right of the chair ...
Well, I had to unplug my phone and get up and go and investigate, the kids had been screaming all day as they played, so it wasn't an unusual occurence and not something to be taken seriously.
The other girls ran to investigate and then the real screams took over. I decided to move faster ... pushing the kids to the concrete stairs, I thought if it was just a paper bag or food burning I could put it out and that's the end of it. I knew I had to check their bedroom in case one of them had run inside with fear and unfortunately their bedroom was next to the kitchen.
But to be honest, what met my eyes when I saw the doorway of the kitchen made me fear for all our lives and the house ... the door was full of an orange - white roiling mass ... not one flame flickered but a live, turning, boiling roll of fire filled my vision. I have never seen fire like that before. It was beautiful yet fearsome. Attractive and attracting. The heat burning but not felt.
As I now checked their room was empty I made my way to the stairs where I met my brother -in-law coming from sleep, I screamed to him to get out, the kids were safe and he should move. He refused and started towards the kitchen. On the stairs my nephew (21 years old) was running up and I grabbed him begging him not to go further to run and safe himself.
You see the night was now upon us, when the fire started it was around 6.45pm but in the tropics night falls fast and with a thud. Like a shutter descending. It was now dark. The electric was off as the generator had not been started - the house was very dark. But if the electric had been on, things could have been worse as the fire would have travelled along the electrics and more fires could have started from electrical burn-outs. Remember, there is no permanent external electric supply.
The fear, the fear was tripled, quadrupled because foolishly there was a 20 gallon plastic barrel of 'kerosene and petrol mix' stored in the kitchen next to the gas stove that had blown over from the open window .... now you see why we were scared. The fule had caught light.
A female visitor to the compound ran to the main road a few hundred yards away and screamed for men to help. Screaming that the church house was on fire. Help was needed.
There is no fire brigade nor ambulance service. What you see is what you get. Men came. I cannot thank them enough. Without those men running into a pitch black house and carrying heavy buckets of water from the stone reservoir in the compound we would have lost the house.
Because of foolishness ....
Standing in the kitchen taking a photo of the devastated roof in the hallway leading away from the kitchen - the door being open into the stairs, this side of the door was virtually untouched ! The girls bedroom door just visible on the right hand side and my bedroom door further down on the right side. The corridor to the upstairs parlour just after the step ladder on the left, before reaching the wooden door.
The upstairs kitchen; the window with the protector
with the glass blown out, the ceiling burnt and fell to the floor,
the door of the kitchen charred and burnt.
It was only by good luck that the injuries weren't worse. I lost some of my eyelashes and singed my hair - remedied by breaking off the dry ends. The other injuries were minor burns, cuts and grazes, nothing that wouldn't heal.
We were lucky.
We also learned our lesson.
No more upstairs kitchen and no more storing fuel inside the house ...
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