Deep with­in the wind­ing roads of Las Lo­mas, tucked away in a hum­ble abode on Savary Road, live 65-year-old De­o­ra­jie Ougar and her 88-year-old moth­er, Rook­min. On the sur­face, their life can seem nor­mal, but when you hear of the strug­gles they con­tin­ue to face, you would un­der­stand that life has not been so kind.

As the rain drenched the porch of the home, the younger Ougar, propped on a sin­gle-seat­ed so­fa at the front of the house, re­vealed, “I suf­fer a stroke on Oc­to­ber 1, 2022. Mom suf­fered a mild heart at­tack, she had flu­id in her lungs, and she had a lung in­fec­tion.”

She al­so added that her moth­er had been hos­pi­talised about two weeks ago and was on­ly re­cent­ly dis­charged due to im­prove­ments in her health con­di­tion.

And while Ougar and her moth­er are on the road to re­cov­ery, that path still has nu­mer­ous ob­sta­cles. Hur­dles that she needs a hand to get over. Be­fore tragedy struck in 2022, Ougar was a ther­a­peu­tic masseuse and do­mes­tic work­er; how­ev­er, the stroke im­pact­ed her abil­i­ty to work.

Cradling her bent hand, the woman stat­ed with a pained ex­pres­sion, “I un­able to work ... you know, I can­not walk, I can­not use my left hand.” Due to fi­nan­cial con­straints, she has not been able to ac­cess the ther­a­py re­quired to over­come the ef­fects of the stroke.

How­ev­er, through friends, she is able to ob­tain oc­ca­sion­al med­ical care. Seem­ing­ly a bit em­bar­rassed, the woman dis­closed, “I don’t get in­come, but friends, friends help me, and a good friend helped me fi­nan­cial­ly ... I have a good friend who does help me fi­nan­cial­ly to go to the doc­tor and so forth.”

But even go­ing to the doc­tor is an ad­di­tion­al has­sle since she has to trav­el to Arou­ca to get the help she needs. “If I have to go, I pay a trans­port. Any­where I go, I have to pay for a car to take me to and from.”

But Ougar is hope­ful her im­pend­ing pen­sion grant will ease their bur­dens.

Hav­ing mi­grat­ed from Cana­da al­most 30 years ago when her fa­ther passed away, she is now await­ing the im­mi­gra­tion di­vi­sion to give the green light. De­spite the dif­fi­cul­ties, how­ev­er, Ougar stressed that she does what she has to do and doesn’t let her lack of mo­bil­i­ty stop her from try­ing.

“I could cook. I could wash. I does do every­thing. I does help my­self, you know? I don’t de­pend on any­body to help.” There is a say­ing that when it rains, it pours, which proves true for the Ougars.

The el­der­ly moth­er and daugh­ter have been liv­ing with­out an elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply for quite some time. Ougar re­vealed that to charge her phone, she has to de­pend on her neigh­bour’s kind­ness. “We liv­ing on state land, and we don’t have no doc­u­ments to get it ... Years ago, it had elec­tric­i­ty, and be­cause of non-pay­ment of the bill, they had to cut it.”

De­o­ra­jie said life af­ter her stroke has been a chal­lenge; how­ev­er, all she needs to live a more com­fort­able life is her im­mi­nent pen­sion and elec­tric­i­ty.

Any­one will­ing to as­sist the Ougars can con­tact De­o­ra­jie at 332-7466.