KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

With tar­pau­lins for a wall and a bro­ken-down roof cov­ered with soot over their heads, Ani­ta Ram­dass Singh and her hus­band, Thack­oor Ba­boolal, have been liv­ing an un­hap­py life.Be­sides their liv­ing con­di­tions, Ram­dass Singh miss­es her fam­i­ly.

Her son, daugh­ter-in-law, and grand­daugh­ter have been mov­ing from rel­a­tive-to-rel­a­tive in search of shel­ter.
The fam­i­ly’s lives suf­fered a hit when a bush­fire spread un­con­trol­lably through the Clax­ton Bay hills be­fore raz­ing their home on March 18. Ba­boolal’s broth­er, Toolsie and his sons lost their home. Toolsie now sleeps un­der a tent.
Thank­ful­ly, the Cou­va/Tabaquite/ Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion sends them a truck-borne wa­ter sup­ply week­ly to keep the place clean.

Their fur­ni­ture is now plas­tic chairs and a few shelves neigh­bours gave them. They al­so got a wa­ter tank, mat­tress­es, ham­pers, clothes and tar­pau­lins.

With no re­frig­er­a­tor, they make sev­er­al trips to the mar­ket week­ly as the cool­er is not enough to store all their per­ish­ables.
Mon­ey is hard to come by. Ram­dass Singh, a seam­stress, lost five sewing ma­chines, leav­ing her with­out the tools to make mon­ey. Ba­boolal, an au­to elec­tri­cian, said work was hard to come by, and as he nears 60 years, no one wants to hire him.
Ram­dass Singh said she bat­tled bush fires for years, but they took her home while she was out.

A car­diac and asth­ma pa­tient, she lost her med­ical doc­u­ments in the fire and has to vis­it the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal of­ten.

With no elec­tric­i­ty to use her neb­u­lis­er, she can on­ly re­ly on her emer­gency in­halers at night as she con­stant­ly breathes in the soot left by the fire.
It is al­so cold sleep­ing with no walls, and she of­ten has to use pills to rest. She has no pri­va­cy.
“It is hard be­cause at night I can­not sleep. I got ac­cus­tomed to them (fam­i­ly) around me. When I lie down and try to sleep, I see this fire all over again. I am see­ing how I had the place be­fore and how it is now. Yes, it is a dis­as­ter, and things hap­pen, but it is hard to put back to­geth­er.”
Ba­boolal filled out forms to seek help from Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion and the Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self-Help.
“Right now, the struc­ture hangs. It dropped there. Some­times we in­hale the lit­tle smoke on the roof. The breeze blows high here. We can­not cook. We have to cook ear­ly in the morn­ing or late in the evening be­cause the breeze blows high and blows out the gas,” Ba­boolal said.
While ban­dits use tools and so­phis­ti­cat­ed means of break­ing in­to homes and busi­ness­es, Ba­boolal fears that he and his wife are easy prey. There are no doors, and ban­dits rob vil­lagers walk­ing along the road.
As the wet sea­son ap­proach­es, the cou­ple said their makeshift home would suf­fer wa­ter dam­age if they did not get help be­fore the rains. They have no stor­age, so many do­na­tions are on the ground.
“Lit­tle or, how­ev­er, small it is, I want to build back home here and have my fam­i­ly to­geth­er. Even if we get a two-room house: we can move on from there. Some­thing sta­ble be­fore the rain comes,” Ram­dass Singh said.
Ba­boolal said the State’s re­sponse to emer­gen­cies like this should be less than a week. While he un­der­stands there is a process, he said the wet sea­son is near, and they will suf­fer un­der se­vere weath­er. 
He said once he gets ma­te­ri­als, his fam­i­ly can get help in the vil­lage to con­struct a new home.
Any­one will­ing to as­sist the fam­i­ly can con­tact 725-9731.