SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

One year af­ter los­ing his world­ly pos­ses­sions to the dev­as­tat­ing floods that en­gulfed Green­vale in Ari­ma, Neil Nakhid's qual­i­ty of life con­tin­ues to de­te­ri­o­rate to the point he now feeds his four chil­dren sug­ar wa­ter and dry bread.

"Last night all I had to give my hun­gry chil­dren to eat was sug­ar wa­ter and dry bread," a tear­ful Nakhid said, as he re­lat­ed the hard­ships he has been fac­ing since last year's Oc­to­ber 19 floods which af­fect­ed sev­er­al ar­eas in Cen­tral, South and east Trinidad.

Nakhid took the bread on cred­it from a shop in the com­mu­ni­ty.

"We make do with what we have. I pre­fer not to beg peo­ple be­cause you does face em­bar­rass­ment and in­sults when they don't know your cir­cum­stances. You know, the dev­il does come my way...some­times I does feel like putting an end to my trou­bles be­cause it be­com­ing un­bear­able now."

Green­vale—a Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) set­tle­ment in which Nakhid lives—was one area that felt the wrath of the rag­ing wa­ters a year ago.

One year lat­er, Nakhid along with sev­er­al af­fect­ed res­i­dents in­sist­ed that their lives have not im­proved and they con­tin­ue to live with an un­easy feel­ing in the height of the rainy sea­son.

For Nakhid, 36, his sto­ry is one of tribu­la­tion, strug­gle and fight­ing the odds.

In 2015, Nakhid who worked as a con­tract­ed rigs man at At­lantic LNG lost his job.

Un­able to land him­self per­ma­nent work, he be­gan do­ing odds and ends to feed his three daugh­ters and one son—ages rang­ing from 13 to five.

He ad­mit­ted that things were not the best but they sur­vived.

When the floods struck, Nakhid said his en­tire life changed.

He re­called cel­e­brat­ing his daugh­ter's fifth birth­day when the wa­ter sud­den­ly gushed in­to their home, trap­ping them in­side.

They had to climb to the ceil­ing and ex­it the roof of their du­plex home to save them­selves from drown­ing.

The fam­i­ly was res­cued by sol­diers hours lat­er.

The $15,000 flood re­lief cheque Nakhid re­ceived from the Gov­ern­ment last year did not go a long way in fur­nish­ing his home and buy­ing all his chil­dren's text­books.

To this day, Nakhid sleeps on the bare floor in his bed­room.

"When the trucks came to dis­trib­ute mat­tress­es to those af­fect­ed it turned in­to a po­lit­i­cal game and I did not get any. I had to drain out the chil­dren's wa­ter­soaked mat­tress­es which is what they have been us­ing. Things so hard I can't even buy a cup for my fam­i­ly. We have been cook­ing in one pot. This is tru­ly hurt­ing me be­cause I al­ways pro­vid­ed for my fam­i­ly. Now they are strug­gling be­cause jobs are hard to come by. Things are not how they used to be," Nakhid said.

On Thurs­day, Nakhid got a day's work to cut grass.

The lit­tle mon­ey he raked in was bare­ly enough to send his chil­dren to school.

"When I don't have mon­ey the kids would have to stay home. This week they stayed home two days."

Last week, Nakhid was told that his chil­dren's per­for­mance in class has been drop­ping due to poor at­ten­dance.

"They are not do­ing well in school be­cause their life is not set­tled. Since the flood­ing we have been thrown in­to a tail­spin. Every­thing is top­sy-turvy. Every time the rain falls the chil­dren would be­come un­easy. They would end up cry­ing. Some­times they don't sleep at nights."

Lack of fi­nances has al­so put a strain on Nakhid's re­la­tion­ship with his com­mon-law-wife.

"We ar­gue for every lit­tle thing be­cause of frus­tra­tion and mon­ey prob­lems which is not healthy for the chil­dren."

To com­pound mat­ters, Nakhid has not been able to pay his $2,000 a month mort­gage, stat­ing that he owes the bank "a lot" and is on the verge of los­ing his home.

"My biggest wor­ry is los­ing my home...where will we go? That is why I have been think­ing about tak­ing my life. But if I end my life what will hap­pen to my chil­dren?"

An­oth­er Green­vale res­i­dent who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty said from a men­tal and psy­cho­log­i­cal per­spec­tive "I don't think any­thing has changed much be­cause the work done has not brought much com­fort to the peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty."

He said when the wa­ter lev­els be­gan ris­ing in the near­by rivers dur­ing Trop­i­cal Storm Karen some res­i­dents moved out.

"Peo­ple are still in pan­ic in Green­vale. That feel­ing will nev­er go away."

Madras Road, St He­le­na res­i­dent Vanes­sa Daniel who bat­tled last year's flood said she still has not re­cov­ered from the in­ci­dent and nev­er will.

"It's like liv­ing on the edge not know­ing what to ex­pect when the weath­er changes," Daniel said.