Enveloped in darkness, sitting in solitude, with an outstretched palm towards a society that he says treats him with indifference bordering contempt, Matthew Rodriguez’s story is harrowing. Cancer took not only his eyesight but his eyes as well. Glaucoma robbed his wife of her vision, while their seven-year-old daughter now lives with only one eye. Like her father, cancer also touched her life.
A black paper clamp fastens a sign onto the front of his T-shirt, which reads, “Help the Blind Please.”
Sitting on the compound of Persad’s Supermarket in Marabella, an establishment gracious enough to allow him a space to ask for assistance, Rodriguez, 34, is inundated with the sound of shopping carts rolling across the tarred floor, softened by the sweltering heat. The noise grows as the carts clang together, metal on metal, when they’re stacked after use.
Given the season, parang music blares through the supermarket’s doors. Its upbeat tones are in stark contrast to his reality—a mere facade to his constant feeling of futility.
Asked what led him down this path, his answer was simple—“hunger”.
“It reached a point where sometimes three or four days we’d have nothing to eat. I would ask family members for help but they would only say they don’t have anything right now. So I decided to put myself out here to get assistance,” Rodriguez explained.
It has been three years since he made this decision–A far from lucrative endeavour.
Rodriguez said that on a weekday, he’d only receives about $30 from passers-by. After observing him for an hour, only one person stopped to slip money into his hand. He lamented that while some people show kindness, others treat him with scorn. The blind man said that he had been chased and threatened.
“Sometimes people would say ‘why you don’t go home, you already getting disability, go home, it have nothing to get here.’ Sometimes they say ‘you playing you’re blind, you can see, and you just want people’s money.’ It does hurt me because I am honestly blind so making that statement hurts. I used to be down by Royal Bank on the wharf and they took my money once or twice down there. And I got threatened already, I can’t see so I won’t be able to tell who threatened me, but I heard what they said,” Rodriguez said.
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“A day in my life, day or night it’s just total darkness, I cannot see a glare nor a glimpse of anything, I get up and go to sleep, is the same thing,” he added.
As an employee of Persad’s gave him a cold bottle of water, which he accepted with a smile, Rodriguez began to paint a picture of his struggles at home.
He and his family live in an HDC unit in Tarodale. However, given their disabilities, managing the home is a challenge.
“Right now, the railings on the steps for my home are gone, it rotten out. The window frames are falling off. If rain falls too hard the living room gets soaked, the bedroom gets soaked, most of the windows are missing,” he lamented.
Rodriguez said their mortgage is $650 per month, however, due to challenging financial times, they are in arrears and facing eviction within six months.
As parang music played in the background, Rodriguez explained that he had tried to find work at retail and wholesale stores, but was told that they do not cater to the visually impaired who they said may “throw things down.”
“Sometimes I feel to throw in the towel and forget everything because it is so hard to sit in the heat and try to get assistance from the good people out there. Negative thoughts and positive thoughts rotate. But I feel to just go in a corner and sit down.
But I have a child to take care of,” he said defiantly.
With his voice cracking, Rodriguez, who lost his eyes at age three, said life was never supposed to turn out this way.
“Growing up I never thought I’d be doing this, you know. My dream was to own a music studio to produce music because I like instruments, that is the dream I had since my school days,” he explained.
The Tarodale man said he yearns for work but needs someone to take a chance on him. He added that he is quite good with computers.
“I am computer literate; I know how to operate them. I attended Upper Level in Chaguanas, and I got an A-plus in that course,” he said, smiling for the first time during the interview.
As he sipped gratefully from the water handed to him, Rodriguez said he puts his pride aside and dons the sign asking for help to make sure his daughter is fed and happy.
“I certainly don’t want this kind of life for her. I want her to achieve what I did not achieve in life. I am trying to put things in place for her. Month end here I want to start insurance for her, trying to put things in place that my family didn’t do for me, something to put her on top. I don’t want her going through this life struggling,” he said.
He admitted he receives a disability grant of $2,000 and his wife does some work with the Blind Welfare office in San Fernando. However, he said her heart condition takes up most of what she earns. In fact, his wife was recently featured in the news after she fell on the road and was injured, after being tripped by a hole outside of her workplace on Coffee Street.
Rodriguez added that a lot of money also goes into transportation for his daughter to and from school, and he complained that the state’s resources for him and his wife are failing them.
“I believe the system in this country not ready for us, you know. The service is called the ELDAMO (Elderly and Differently Abled Mobile Service), we are supposed to get that service and because of the area we are living in, they said they can’t come in. Many times, we tried to get that service, and they never really tried to assist us,” he lamented.
With those bills due every month, Rodriguez said it leaves very little for food.
Rodriguez also suggested that the Government take another look at the disability grant to ascertain how inflation has lessened its spending power.
“Budget come budget go it’s the same way, they never said they would add a little $500 to it,” he said with a wry smile.
Anyone wishing to help the Rodriguez family can contact him at 490-7573. Calls are preferred due to his disability.
