The most terrifying moment of my life happened to me yesterday while I was having a shower.

It was about 4 or 5pm and I had decided to take advantage of the fact that most of the kids were at school so I could shower in peace.

So I went into the ´´special shower¨´ aka Peter´s shower or the grown up shower as it is the only one in the home that you can get hot water through at the moment.

There are instructions for the special shower, which Peter forcefully instilled on my first day at the orphanage, such as where to point the nozzle thingy and how to turn the taps, with the aim being of course to get as much hot water asap.

I follow these instructions to the letter, although he would probably have you believe different.

So anyway there I was in the special shower completely starkers, with my head covered in shampoo and soap on my legs so I could shave them properly, when the door blew shut.

The door that Peter had said NEVER LOCK, BECAUSE YOU´LL NEVER GET IT OPEN.

And what´s more, my towel was outside in the little room adjoining the special shower.

And the window was too small so I wouldn´t be able to climb through it and escape.

Oh my God, I thought, this is worse than the time I got locked in a toilet in Durban, in South Africa and couldn´t get out.

My heart nearly stopped beating.

I quickly resigned myself to the fact that someone, most probably Peter, would have to come and rescue me and that I would probably never hear the end of it.

So I climbed up to the window on the toilet seat, still naked and covered in soap suds, and looked outside, ready to call his name. But he was not there.

In fact, the only person I could see was Victor.

It was just getting worse.

About two seconds later, Rose, aka the live in social worker who looks after the kids, came along.

¨Help,¨! I cried. Ï´m stuck in the shower, the door blew shut. You have to come and get me out.¨

But Rose, who cannot speak or understand a word of English, just looked at me like a raving lunatic. What could she possibly think I was doing, though, just calling out to her to say gday while I was in the shower.

I fell to my feet, resigning myself to spending the rest of my life in a Bolivian shower the size of a broom closet, when magically, or maybe even it was another prayer answered from God, the door blew open.

Saved.

I ran out, completely naked and still covered in shampoo, promising myself to commit this phrase to memory in Spanish, HELP ME. I´M STUCK IN THE SHOWER. GET ME OUT!!!

Certainly one of the most terrifying moments of my life.