Charford Court, Port-of-Spain, resident Shurla Peloi is distraught by her new reality of empty cupboards and high unpaid bills. But most of all, her new-found responsibility, her granddaughter Niah, is most troubling to her.
For Peloi, it all started to go downhill when her son Garvin was allegedly beaten by police in 2018.
“He was hit in his head, his jaw was broken, is a whole set of drama with this story and since that incident happened, my son is not the son he used to be,” she said on Thursday.
Peloi said Garvin quickly became erratic and unstable and was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He remains an out-patient at St Ann’s Hospital.
His daughter Niah was born in 2019 but because of his illness and behaviour, her mother moved out of Charford Court and went to Arima.
But in April last year, there was more bad news on the horizon for Peloi.
Her daughter-in-law called her to say she had contracted COVID-19 and was hospitalised. She asked that the child’s father pick her up in Arima. But that did not happen, as Peloi could not find him for months.
“Then I never heard from her again until someone told me in November last year ‘your daughter-in-law died you know,’ and I said eh,” she added.
Although she had no idea where the child was, she began a frantic search which ended in April this year, when she got a call from someone asking her to pick up Niah.
She explained that when she went, the people who had Niah handed her over with only the clothes on her back.
Peloi said she is now on a mission to get Niah into a school.
But it has not been easy on either of them so far.
“This is something new because she has a lot of needs, she has a lot of needs. I don’t really make her come on the corridor because it have kids, little ones does come with their tablet and when she wants to look in it, they would pull.”
Peloi said she is also trying to get Niah’s birth certificate organised.
However, she also lost her job in 2020 due to the pandemic and all she wants now is new employment to get back on her feet.
Peloi said she has dropped off several resumes and even took the COVID-19 vaccines as a prerequisite for employment but to date, nothing has borne fruit.
All she wants to do now is work so she can care for Niah, who is still grieving over her mother’s death.
“Whenever she passes by a cemetery, like when we were coming from Arima, she would call me mommy, she would say ‘mommy, mommy (pointing to the graves) mommy, mommy’ and ‘she not coming back you know,’” Peloi said.
She said Niah also wakes up in the middle of the night screaming for her mother.
“I try my best, yes. I need help, it is bigger than I thought, it is much bigger than I thought,” Peloi said.
Anyone wishing to help Peloi and Niah can contact her at 316-2687.
