“I don’t know what to do. Not yet. I haven’t decided yet.” So said a tired and still visibly shocked Zane Cupido after a fire gutted his shop on Sunday 29 June.
“Uncle Zane,” as he is affectionately referred to by everybody, has been a Caledon resident for 32 years.
His second-hand shop was a treasure trove where one could find anything from wood carvings to hand basins, tools, specialised machinery and much more. Cupido knew exactly what he had in the shop and could always assist people with what they needed.
Hermanus Times spoke to him on the Monday following the fire. “I don’t have electricity in my house at the moment, so I cook my food on a wood-burning Dover stove in the backyard, which is between my house and the shop. I put the food on the stove to cook, and then just before one o’clock I went into the house to do my Salah (prayer). When I looked up from the room I saw there was fire and I heard people calling to me to come out of the house.”
The fire brigade was on the scene and managed to extinguish the fire after a few hours and also prevented it from spreading to neighbouring buildings.
As a safety precaution the residents living above the mosque, which is next to Cupido’s shop, were evacuated and given the all-clear to return after the fire was extinguished.
“I am 80 years old and can’t begin all over again,” said a despondent Cupido. “Business is very difficult now and I don’t have the strength to carry on.”
As if losing his shop, which was his livelihood, wasn’t bad enough, some thugs saw fit to enter his house at the back of the burning building and steal his cellphone, power bank and other personal belongings. “How can people do that? What kind of society are we living in?” he asked.
Nobody was injured in the fire. Cupido expressed his sincere gratitude to the fire department for their service.
