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2020 was already off to a rocky start for Olu and her family as they were grieving the passing of their beloved grandmother and auntie. As well as this, her mother had been spending the small income she was earning on an abusive divorce whilst suffering the financial impact of the pandemic. Leaving Olu and her brother reliant on the kindness of food banks.
Unfortunately, on the 12th August 2020, life took a turn for the worst as their family home was engulfed in flames with nothing but the clothes on their back left of their belongings.
Shocked and wanting to do more than just a retweet, I reached out on to Olu on Twitter. From there we had this interview where I learned more about Olu and the unfortunate tragedy that has changed their lives.
R: You’ve been through a lot this year as I saw on your Twitter thread, how are you and your family coping right now, how are you guys doing?
O: Well, as you know it happened on Wednesday night so obviously for many reasons it was a bit of a shock. (I’m) just in that state of shock right now, literally going from relaxing in your home to not knowing what you’re doing anymore because you don’t have that security blanket. Right now we are just trying to sort everything out but, feeling loved from friends and family and so many people on the internet have shown us a lot of love, so it's really helping.
R: That’s good to hear that at least you’re getting support, can you describe what happened on the day of the fire, what was going through your mind the first time you heard about the fire?
O: Yeah, so we still don’t know the cause of it but, in regards to what happened as to how we found it, I remember I was having such a good day you know when you’re just sitting having a self-care day. I was watching some TV, feeling very nostalgic, it felt really good and I was watching a few episodes of Doctor Who that I hadn't seen in a while and I was sitting looking at the TV and I just remember I heard a kind of click and the TV switched off and in my area power cuts aren’t rare so I just thought the power went out but, then I saw the light in my hallway still on and I just thought that’s not right. I went to go to the room where my mum was sitting on the bed, she tried to figure out what was going on and so I was walking through my hallway and hearing what I thought were footsteps in our attic, as we live in a bungalow . So my first thought was are there, I don't know how but, was someone up there, had someone broken in because it was very, it was like someone walking very heavy so, I tried to get our attention to the front door at that point and I remember looking at our attic front door and seeing the light through the slip and so I ran to get my phone to call 999 and when I walked back into the hallway I remember it was like a movie, the operator was like ‘999 who’d you need?’ and as I was about to tell them 'police', my mum got the stick we used to use to open the attic door and fire literally just jumped down on her and I just screamed “FIRE!”. We ran out and left everything. At that time there was at least a dozen people on the street and obviously now my faith in humanity is so high but, at the time, it was low because apart from two people that were walking up our driveway to what I believe was to check if we were okay, everyone else was just standing or videoing.
R: Was it just your house that was set on fire?
O: Yeah, it was just no other house, just my house. What I found out was that those two people that came, that were walking up (the driveway), one of them lived literally on the other end of our road, I’ve never met (them) before, I’ve lived here for ten years, and one of them lived the road over. What had happened was she’d seen the smoke from her house, called the fire station and then came running over to our house, literally from the other street and that’s when we realised. Yet, those people on that street that literally was like across the road from us, just in the house across the road, no one came to knock on our door, those two were about to, but, no one came to check if we were there, they were just standing, watching, filming.
R: You’d think they’d want to help or something, that’s horrible but, at least it was lucky that those two people tried.
O: Yeah, definitely.
R: How has this whole thing changed you and your perspective on life, how has your perception of your day to day life changed now?
O: I already have trouble sleeping, just never could sleep well to begin with, and I remember I didn’t sleep at all. I just lay awake the whole night and didn’t sleep properly till Thursday night for about 2 hours maybe. I don’t think it’s quite hit me yet how, it hit me how serious it is, seeing the house and knowing its bad but, because of everyone’s love and kindness it hasn’t hit me how much of a loss it is, which probably makes it easier.
Olu's younger brother and mother pictured.
R: Understandable of course.
O: And we are so so grateful for all the love that we’ve been getting. It’s like a bittersweet thing because, seeing all the money being donated and the help that we’re getting but, we’re human and everyone knows that trends die quickly and the world moves on pretty soon, could be a within few weeks or most likely a few days, but the world will move on and the money that has been raised has been amazing but, in order to fix the house to what it used to be, we need to have ten times what we got, it’s very bittersweet.
R: Of course, that is definitely understandable because it’s a horrible event but you know it shows that there is some humanity in some people. I’ve seen the social media side only, so have you received any help from your council or anything else so far?
O: So, I’m separated from my mum right now because as we’re a family of three its very hard to find places for us. I’ve been checking in on her every day, calling in on her. I’ve currently seen her a few times since but, I don’t know much about the council side and what is happening, as far as I know, she’s waiting for the offices to reopen on Monday. Yeah, I’m just working really really as hard as possible on social media, it’s very weird because my degree is in digital marketing and I’ve always said that I’ve wanted to be like a social media creator and the one time that I get to show my skills is through something very tragic.
R: Tragic but, hopefully, it’ll lead to something better. It’ll hopefully come full circle in a positive way I hope. Is there anything else you’d like to share with me or anything you would like to say to the readers?
O: To the readers, whether you donated or you spent time talking to me, or even if you don’t and just have us in your thoughts and prayers for a second of your day, thank you because it is literally the worst time for this to happen, a global pandemic, a recession, people are losing their jobs yet, the kindness we’ve been shown has been unfathomable and for people to have so much going on in their daily lives and still want to help us and think about us and show us love we couldn’t be more grateful whatsoever, all we ask is for people to be nice and that’s what they did so yeah, we are very very grateful and hopefully, we’ll be able to fix this.
R: Yeah, I hope it all sorts out and you’ll be in a better place and it’ll be a blessing in disguise and that something bigger and better is going to come out of this hopefully but, thank you so much for giving up your time to be interviewed I really appreciate it.
O: Thank you for wanting to share this story with your readers.
After my interview with Olu ended it put a lot of things into perspective. Life really is short and can change in a matter of seconds. Value the people closest to you and be that stranger with kindness in your heart because you never know how it can change someone's life.
Donate to the following resources below to help Olu and her family recover:
Gofundme
Paypal
oezeofor11@outlook.com
Cashapp
£storyofolu
If you can't donate, or even if you have, please share this interview to spread awareness and help Olu reach her goal.
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