Unbreakable
Runner's World|January 2018

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

Lisa Abdellah
Unbreakable

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.

This story is from the January 2018 edition of Runner's World.

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This story is from the January 2018 edition of Runner's World.

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