Yvonne Ba­boolal

Ish­mael Mo­hammed be­came a drug push­er at age 11, right af­ter his fa­ther hanged him­self. Mo­hammed want­ed to help sup­port his fam­i­ly. His moth­er's fam­i­ly, in­volved in the drug trade, in­tro­duced him to the life of the un­der­world in The Co­conut in El So­cor­ro. In no time, Mo­hammed be­came a top work­er for a for­mer well-known drug lord.

He had thou­sands of dol­lars in his pock­et on any giv­en day, but be­came ad­dict­ed to the same co­caine he was sell­ing and end­ed up a va­grant on the streets. "I was eat­ing from garbage bins and chas­ing away dogs to get dis­card­ed food be­fore them," Mo­hammed, 40, told the Sun­day Guardian last week. He was de­liv­ered from co­caine's hell through a di­vine ex­pe­ri­ence in an aban­doned gas sta­tion one night, three months ago, he said.

Abused

Re­call­ing his night­mar­ish life, he re­lat­ed: "I was at­tend­ing St George's Col­lege in Barataria. I had been one of the bright­est boys in pri­ma­ry school.

"But I was ex­treme­ly abused by my par­ents, emo­tion­al­ly and phys­i­cal­ly. My fa­ther was in­volved in the oc­cult. "One day, when I was 11, I came home and saw him hang­ing from the roof, right where I used to sleep. "I had to burst a hole in the door to get in­to the room, climbed on the bed, stood on the ledge and stretched to the rafter to un­tie the rope. "When I got him down, he was still alive and I kept cry­ing, 'Dad­dy, Dad­dy!' He died in my arms. "I just didn't care about any­thing af­ter that," Mo­hammed said. An un­cle was a hit man for a drug lord in the area, and he got an "evening job" for Mo­hammed, sell­ing fruit from a big stall. "Two months af­ter, the own­er hand­ed me a bag and I switched to sell­ing drugs on the evening shift. "I con­tin­ued go­ing to school, but not with books," he said. "I used to have $20,000 in my pock­et."

First as­sign­ment

Mo­hammed's first big as­sign­ment was to bring back a boat­load of mar­i­jua­na and co­caine from Venezuela. "It was in a re­frig­er­at­ed con­tain­er filled with fruit. "There was a pan­el be­tween the out­er wall and an in­ner fi­bre­glass sheet. The space be­tween was the ex­act thick­ness of one ki­lo of weed.

"The drugs was packed in­side this on two walls, from the floor right to the roof of the con­tain­er. "I lived in The Co­conut, most of which was swamp, and it was easy to hide the drugs there." Mo­hammed said by age 16, he was earn­ing about $50,000 a day and spend­ing large sums on smok­ing co­caine and par­ties.

"I gave away a lot of mon­ey. I just nev­er re­al­ly cared about any­thing.

"Co­caine takes con­trol of you. You don't feel pain, anger. It numbs your mind," he said, de­scrib­ing the ex­pe­ri­ence. The abuse he re­ceived in child­hood he in­flict­ed on oth­ers. "I did things to peo­ple and took great joy in see­ing them suf­fer." Mo­hammed even did a two-year stint at Gold­en Grove Prison in Arou­ca for traf­fick­ing co­caine and beat­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer. One and a half years af­ter us­ing co­caine, Mo­hammed end­ed up liv­ing on the streets of San Juan. "As long as I had a sup­ply of co­caine, I was good. But I fell out with the boss and the sup­ply was cut off."

Love Un­til

For 21 years, Mo­hammed lived on­ly for co­caine. "If I knew I was go­ing to get mon­ey to buy co­caine, I would feel the mus­cles rip­ping in my stom­ach, so great was the crav­ing. "But God sent an aware­ness to me. He said this is not why I gave you life. I knew the voice of God. I had an ex­pe­ri­ence be­fore. "I start­ed to be­lieve that God al­lowed me to go through all these ex­pe­ri­ences to help oth­ers." One Sun­day, Pe­dro de Sil­va showed up on El So­cor­ro's streets and asked Mo­hammed if he was in­ter­est­ed in a re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion cen­tre run by a group called Love Un­til. "I re­al­ly want­ed out, and said yes." It was while wait­ing for de Sil­va to come back that Mo­hammed had a di­vine en­counter in an aban­doned gas sta­tion that was to change his life. "I sat there and asked God to de­liv­er me from drugs, and promised to serve him for the rest of my life if he did.

"In­stant­ly, I knew in my spir­it that God had plucked out the crav­ing for co­caine. It's been three months, and I nev­er had the urge for co­caine, noth­ing." In­stead, Mo­hammed has been help­ing to re­ha­bil­i­tate drug ad­dicts brought to the Rea­di Cen­tre and shar­ing his ex­pe­ri­ence with stu­dents all over Trinidad and To­ba­go. "By Sep­tem­ber, I hope to start study­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of South­ern Caribbean to be­come a pas­tor," he said. Love Un­til, af­fil­i­at­ed to the Laven­tille Sev­enth-Day Ad­ven­tist Church, be­lieves in lov­ing un­til Je­sus comes. They have been in­volved in nu­mer­ous out­reach pro­grammes, and are tak­ing care of Mo­hammed un­til he gets back on his feet.