Two weeks after he lost his wife and home in a fire, Moruga pensioner Roop Esahack is still haunted by her screams for help.
“I don’t sleep,” he said with tears rolling down his cheeks.
Esahack was left with nothing but the clothes on his back after the fatal fire on March 30. Since then, he has been homeless and sleeps on a mattress in the gallery of his next-door neighbour’s home.
Members of Moruga 2050 Association for Sustainability, a community group, are willing to rebuild Esahack’s home, but need assistance with materials.
“Who could help me I will be very thankful,” he said
Esahack’s wife, Sumintra Roopnarine, 68, had her legs amputated from the knee and used a wheelchair. He did everything for her.
The couple had been together for 28 years but he had been living at Blas Cha Cha Trace, Basse Terre, for 48 years.
On the day of the fire, Esahack said, he was under the house around 2 pm when he saw smoke. He alerted a neighbour, but they could not get into the house because of the intense heat.
The fire started in the front bedroom where he had left his wife. The house was located in an area with no pipe-borne water.
Esahack recalled, “When we reach the front of the house, the whole front room coming across to the front door, all that on fire. We throwing water and thing, trying to get in. We couldn’t out the fire. We couldn’t get in to try and save she.
“She was bawling, ‘Daddy,’ she does call me daddy. ‘Daddy, fire. Come for me. Fire.’ And I couldn’t get in to save she. She bawl and when she stop bawling I come and sit down on this chair and I say she dead. Within 20 minutes the house went down with everything.”
Esahack said he has been getting some assistance from villagers, but it has been difficult for him.
“I could never feel good. How will anybody feel in a situation like this? I is 73 years old. I have to go with this until dead,” he said.
He is staying with his neighbour Herraman Soogrimsingh.
The Soogramsingh family, which includes his wife and 17-year-old son, depend on public assistance to survive and live in a dilapidated house with a leaking roof. However, Soogrimsingh said he could not leave his friend without a roof over his head.
Members of the Moruga 2050 Association for Sustainability began clearing the rubble left from the fire on Wednesday. They are offering free labour but need building materials.
President of the group, former Moruga councillor Francis Paul, said Esahack had to start from scratch and needed help.
“We know there are some individuals out there who we are appealing to, to contribute. We need lumber, galvanise, flooring boards, wall boards, two by four, four by six, to get the building reconstructed,” Paul said.
He said about 35 residents in the area had no pipe-borne water because there was no infrastructure.
“I am making an appeal to WASA to have this line run as soon as possible. Probably if they had water something could have been done,” he said.
Esahack has to await DNA results to confirm the body was his wife’s before he can plan her funeral. Anyone willing to assist can contact him at 290-7958, or Paul at 761-7477.