Chance Encounter Allows Fire Survivor to Thank Good Samaritan

This could just be a story about a Donut, but it’s not, it’s a lot more than that… writes ANTON SCHUTTE.

I popped down to Pick n Pay Camp’s Bay to grab some supplies. I then decided I felt like a donut… so I stopped at the bakery.

I waited for about 5 minutes with an empty bakery and no staff, so I popped off to find someone to help. The manager called the bakery lady from wherever she was otherwise occupied…

She stood behind the counter… and her face barely makes it over the counter’s edge. She is that tiny. Her name is Kwanga Nunu.

The first words she says to me are: “Thank you so much for helping me that day of the Fires.”

My mind jolts back to the Hout Bay fires in March 2017.

I remember walking back up towards the burning shacks of Mandela Park, Hout Bay, pouring sweat after doing dozens of trips from 7am in the morning, carrying people’s entire belongings away from this wall of fire that tore fiercely down the mountain.

She was trying to wrestle the biggest bundle of belongings, wrapped up in the hugest double bed duvet covers that I have ever seen!

I struggled to heave it up onto my shoulders, carrying it on the full surface of my back, bent over, face towards the ground, barely able to see where I was going through the top of my eyeballs; we got it away from the fire and way down the hill.

Back up the hill we both went, in different directions… to grab the next load of whatever we could find.

That was the last I saw of her, until today!

She then says to me: “I do not know how to ever thank you enough or repay you.”

I wanted to cry.

I told her: “There is no need to repay me; just the fact that you remember me and thanked me is all i could ever ask for… we all need to look out for one another and I can only hope that if I were in need of help, someone would do the same for me. I wish I could have done more…”

We both agreed to share this story on social media because 1) it is a great story and 2) hopefully it will inspire someone, if not everyone. If we do good in life and help one another, we live in a society of love and hope.

Take a moment to reflect on this simple yet powerful story.

***

Mpozi Nunu shared the story and said: “March 11th what a day… It seemed like I was watching a horror movie. Thanks once again to those extra hands who helped everyone in IY.” (Imizamo Yethu informal settlement.)

Some photos by Justin Sullivan Photography. Anton says: “I chose those images of his as it most closely represented the conditions we were running into on that day…”

View Anton Schutte’s original post (republished here with Anton’s kind permission).

More Imizamo Yethu, Hout Bay fire photos by Justin Sullivan.