It was one Sunday morning when I decided to wake up very early and go collect wood. Mama always warned me, “Thando, while collecting wood, don’t go too deep into the bush because it’s not safe,” she said that a thousand times to me.

As I pushed my wheelbarrow on my way to collect wood my neighbour was on her way back from collecting wood. As I greeted her she smiled.

“Today it’s you going to collect wood, that’s great,” she said. I told her I wanted mama to rest today and I will take care of home chores today. “Well hurry up and get deep into the bush while other women are still there. Because I tell you Thando, the deeper you go into the bush, the more you get good wood,” she said.

“Okay let me hurry up,” I replied.

I then pushed my wheelbarrow very fast so I could catch other women. As I got near the bush I saw no one coming out of it. I then thought they were still deep into the bush collecting wood. I pushed my wheelbarrow deeper into the bush. I then started collecting wood. As I was walking around collecting wood I heard voices. I got a little excited hoping is the other wood collectors.

I then saw a long tree and decided to climb it so I can see where the other wood collectors where. As I climbed it the voices got clear and they were not women voices but men. As I got to the top of the tree everything was clear. It was three men all holding guns while other two men were lying down.

I was scared because the three guys had guns but I wanted to see what was going to happen. Then I silently sat on top of the tree, a few metres away from the scene to see what was really going on.

“Give us anything you’ve got credit cards, phones, money, anything,” one of the man holding a gun said. Then the other two men lying on the ground did as they were told. After giving all they had a trigger was pulled and one man was shot. The gun shot scared me that I fell down from the tree and my leg got scratched. As I was trying to stand up and run I heard one of the men saying, “Someone saw us, Snoopy, Jojo go get rid of him or her.”

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