We exchanged emails and arranged to meet. One friend quipped that if we got married it’d make a magnificent story

• Read more in the kindness of strangers series

By the time I’d realised my Kindle was gone, I was already on my next flight. The year was 2014 and I was treating myself to a trip to South Africa before starting my first graduate job, but this was not an auspicious beginning. I’d left the Kindle in the seat pocket in front of me during the 14-hour Sydney to Johannesburg leg and I was horrified.

My e-reader was my constant companion and comfort, living under my pillow after I read myself to sleep every night. I had spent months curating a selection of my favourite books, and now it was gone for good. Still, I was almost in Cape Town, and I couldn’t let it ruin my holiday. To me, South Africa was both foreign and familiar, the place of my parents’ birth but not my own.