“The fire has attacked us. It has taken Cya.”
This was the tragic message family and neighbours woke up to at 10pm in Motherwell NU10 a week ago when a young man perished in flames that enveloped his home.
In barely 20 minutes the shack where Siyamthanda Gidana, 26, was sleeping had burnt to the ground, the heat of the fire melting his bed to his body.
It was a blaze that has devastated a family of siblings who, years ago, had to struggle in a child-headed household after their mother died and who took in Gidana at the age of seven after his mother – one of their sisters – had died.
The only recognisable object in the heap of burnt-out rubble in Motswaledi Street where the shack stood was a tin of black Kiwi shoe polish.
“It makes me so very sad to come here,” his aunt, Noluthando Mthelekisi, 37, said.
“Nothing like this has ever happened here.
“I don’t think we ever even had a fire in Motswaledi Street.”
She lives across the road in a tiny house. It was here that she and her siblings raised themselves in a child-headed household after their mother, Gidana’s grandmother, and his own mother had died.
“We did get the grant and when we were old enough the court gave us a foster care order to look after Cya,” Mthelekisi said, referring to her nephew by the nickname he used.
“He was the youngest but he always tried to help us.”
“He was only seven when he came to live with us. He was always the quiet one.
“He loved soccer. He even had the hairdresser shave the symbol of his team into his hair,” Mthelekisi said.
“I am really struggling to accept that he is gone.
“On Tuesday night [last week] at 9pm, he said goodnight, walked across to his house and then he died.”
The blaze started shortly after 9.30pm and within minutes the shack had been razed.
By the time the neighbours got him out, Gidana was dead.
“We only heard someone shout: ‘Fire! Help! Fire!’ Then nothing else. We can’t find answers,” Mthelekisi said.
“The firefighters said it was not his stove. He had electricity.“He didn’t use gas or candles, he didn’t smoke. We don’t know what caused the fire.“It burnt for only 20 minutes and it took everything.“It felt the fire department took forever to come.“I am not saying they took too long, but I was hoping that they could have done something.“Maybe if they were here earlier they could have saved him,” Mthelekisi said.She said the family was struggling to bury the young soccer player as money was tight and had always been.Mthelekisi had been looking after Gidana since she was just 17.“My heart doesn’t want to believe that he is gone.“He was the only one with a job. He was a nice person. I won’t say that he never drank, but he wasn’t a heavy drinker.”Mthelekisi’s brother, Maxolisi, 29, said they had grown up together as they were closer in age than Gidana’s aunts in the family.“We went out. He wasn’t a big talker.“He loved soccer. He first played goalkeeper and then he played defender.“We always helped each other. If one was working, the other one would do the yard work and paint the house.“At the end of the month, we would put our money together,” Maxolisi said.“We would look after everybody. He just got a new job.“I am not even sure yet what he was doing but he was working in a shop.”Barely able to speak, Gidana’s girlfriend Fezeka Lepele, 23, said she could not believe that her boyfriend of four years was gone.“We met in Addo – he was working there. He could make me smile – he was always ready with a little joke. I loved him so much,” Lepele said.“He wanted to do everything well.”Mthelekisi asked her other relatives: “Do you have a good picture of him?“Where is the one [taken last week]? He looked good that day.”