Standing beneath the unforgiving midday sun, with an open palm pleading for a helping hand and a two-year-old blissfully unaware of the pity taken on her by passers-by, Indira Narinesingh does what she was taught to do as a child.
Balancing in her arms a cardboard sign asking passing motorists for food, milk and diapers and a toddler pleading for her now warm bottle of milk, the 34-year-old mother of four believes asking the public for charity is her only option to feed her family.
“From small when I was living with my father, he used to tell me to go and help him out and he used to carry us to hustle with him and that’s how I know about this, that is how my father grew me up and I don’t have anyone to help,” Narinesingh said while the now fed child lay somewhat peacefully in her mother’s arms in the blazing heat.
Narinesingh said since she was 11 years old her father made her ask people for money at what is now the overpass in Endeavour.
Now as an adult and with children of her own, she continues the depressing family tradition but this time at the northern gate of the Grand Bazaar mall.
She said hungry mouths were waiting for her at home.
“It has times when the children don’t eat for days, and I don’t have money to buy anything for them to eat, they say ‘Mummy I’m hungry’ and I say ‘It does not have anything, and you will have to wait tomorrow when I go to see if I could get a little help to buy food’,” Narinesingh explained.
“I feel sad, I cry but I don’t have a choice,” she added.
As her two-year-old opened a snack and ate it with a satisfied look, Narinesingh recalled heartbreaking conversations she had with her older children. Conversations that make her believe depending on the kindness of others is her only option for quick relief.
“In the nighttime, the children does be with me and they will hug me up and sleep. And they will say ‘Mummy what are you going to do tomorrow? What are we going to eat? How are we going to survive?’ And I tell them not to worry, tomorrow, God must help us in life. And I would pray hard for people to help me,” she added.
Washing away the remnants of the snack from the child’s hands and mouth, she sheepishly said it’s a lifestyle that she is trying to break away from.
“I want to come out from it, I want to, I am willing to work if someone gives me a job, it’s just that I don’t have anyone to help me right now,” she said.
But as Narinesingh thanked a sympathetic driver who handed over a $5 bill, she lamented that her parents never sent her to school, choosing instead to use her to beg on the streets.
It’s why she believes she is not suited for any job. Adding to her low self-confidence, Narinesingh has a speech disorder due to a cleft palate she developed as a baby.
A cleft palate is an opening or split in the roof of the mouth that occurs when the tissue doesn’t fuse during development in the womb. As a result, Narinesingh does not speak coherently.
‘If I could get a job’
During the interview, a police car on patrol passed by and Narinesingh stopped speaking to look at the vehicle with apprehension. Satisfied the officers were at a safe distance away, she whispered, “It has a policewoman who does bouff me.”
While several motorists looked at her and the child with a mixture of sympathy and sorrow, others cast judging and condemnatory looks at her. It’s something she is accustomed to.
“People bouff me up, people quarrel, they will call the police, and the police will come, and they want to charge me. When I just came here some people wanted to take my baby and I talked to the (mall) manager, and she told them off,” she explained.
Narinesingh added that she keeps her youngest with her because the child does not like to be with anyone else.
But even with a red umbrella casting a scarlet glow on the child’s face, the mother admits that she too worries that the child will faint and therefore she limits her time outside of Grand Bazaar to just about four hours a day.
She has been at this spot for almost two years.
Since her youngest was a baby. As the child played with the cardboard sign it dawned on us that this is the only life this child has known, so far.
In addition to the sign asking for assistance, a laminated First Year booklist lay next to a bookbag on the floor next to them. Narinesingh said she’s desperate to send all her children to school next month.
The last time she failed to, they were almost taken from her.
“I kept home my children for two months and they called police and welfare for me and that is when I told them I don’t have the money to buy the books,” she bemoaned.
Moreover, she does not want her children to live like this. It’s not often a parent wishes that their children are nothing like them.
“I don’t want my children to be how I am. Asking people for money, I don’t want my children to grow up like that,” she cried.
Apart from the toddler, Narinesingh has three other children ages five, eight and 11.
She said the children’s father now lives with his mother and recently suffered a serious physical injury which limits his ability to work.
As several cars passed her and the child by without so much as a cursory glance, Narinesingh said a steady job is something she is willing to do if an employer can deal with her lack of education.
“If I could get a job, and someone to see about the children it’s not a problem then I will get a job,” she said.
Narinesingh said she tried to apply for state assistance but was allegedly told by an official at the Ministry of Social Development and Family Services that she looked healthy enough to work.
Narinesingh does not own a cell phone, anyone wishing to help her get off the streets can call her neighbour at 778-3641.
For now, the mother and child can also be found at Grand Bazaar’s northern gate. Hopefully, not for long again if Narinesingh’s dreams come true.