Unbreakable

THE BOND BETWEEN A DETERMINED DOMESTIC WORKER AND HER EMPLOYER FUELLED HER NEW YORK MARATHON DREAM.

- Lisa Abdellah

IT WAS NEW YEAR’S EVE when ultra-marathon runner Veronica Mtetwa received a phone call relaying the devastating news that her mother, Smomo Nxumalo, had been hit by a stray bullet in her hometown of Pongola. While it’s a miracle she survived the incident at all, she is now completely blind.

Mtetwa, a 34-year-old domestic worker, had been saving a portion of her wages to pay for a trip to America to run the New York Marathon. But there’s an unbreakable bond between mother and daughter; there was never any doubt in Mtetwa’s mind that she would use the money to help her mother instead.

Their relationship is one of unconditional love and support – which we should expect, but don’t always see. Before Nxumalo’s accident, she even took care of Mtetwa’s three children – sons Nhlakanipho (16) and Bandile (14), and daughter Londeka (8).

“My mom is everything to me. She’s the only one I have left. I felt sad when she had to go to hospital so that doctors could clean the wound,” Mtetwa says. “I hired a carer for her while she was recovering.”

Mtetwa’s employer of 11 years, Jody Cameron, understood she needed to go home for a while to help her mother adjust to her new life without sight.

Though Cameron and her sister hadn’t exactly had it easy being raised by a single parent, she’s the first to admit their life in Ballito was never as challenging as Mtetwa’s in a rural township. Even so, an unlikely friendship has formed between these two women that has nothing to do with where they came from, and everything to do with family.