South Africa: Family receives parcel 13 years after it was sent by post office

By Hans Ngala

CAPE TOWN – A South African woman in the city of Durban was left astonished, after a parcel sent by her father, arrived the post office 13 years later.
Sanja Hanekom, 52, and her husband received a final postal delivery notification and when they went to collect the package, they noticed that the stamp on it was from 2010 and that the parcel looked battered and taped all over.
They nevertheless collected it and went home and to their amazement, found that the package had been sent in 2010 shortly after the birth of their daughter, Maria who is now 13.
“Wow! It was unbelievable,” Hanekom told News24, South Africa’s largest digital news outlet. She said when they opened the box, there were stacks of interior design magazines, sneakers, boxes of flavoured teas, a glass teapot set and two congratulatory cards for their newborn baby.
“I sent my dad a picture of the parcel via WhatsApp. Initially, he could not even remember sending it, but when I started telling him about the tea and magazines, he remembered that it was the parcel he had sent shortly after my daughter Maria’s birth” Hanekom said.
She also added that the tea is still in pristine condition and that they intend to drink it using the teapot her father sent from New York back in 2010 when the country was hosting the World Cup.
Interestingly, the sneakers in the box were size 39 and would not have fit Maria as a baby obviously but Hanekom said they now fit her like a glove.