Jo­can­na Joseph is a case study in re­silience. Sel­dom would some­one in her sit­u­a­tion find the strength for op­ti­mism. With sev­en mouths to feed, and a small one- room wood­en home, bare­ly big enough for two, her fam­i­ly of eight is the very de­f­i­n­i­tion of ‘hav­ing noth­ing but each oth­er’.

“A woman knows how to stretch and to make things hap­pen,” the 27-year-old moth­er said with a smile.

But as a chick­en pecked at a fall­en man­go tree in the yard of their Church Street, Matu­ra home, a brief look of wor­ry be­trayed her in­nate cheer­ful coun­te­nance when the moth­er of sev­en con­front­ed the re­al­i­ty that de­spite her bound­less op­ti­mism, the re­sources be­fore her to feed and to shel­ter are fi­nite.

As she quick­ly and ashamed­ly wiped away a soli­tary tear on her right cheek, Joseph, who does not have steady work, ex­plained that strug­gle is on a spec­trum, and her fam­i­ly is on the worse end.

“Let we put it this way, for in­stance, you love to eat meat, now you don’t have any meat in your fridge, for you, it comes like you don’t have any gro­ceries. That is not my sce­nario,” the moth­er said be­fore tak­ing a deep breath for what came next.

“When I don’t have, I don’t have. I don’t... have. You un­der­stand?” she asked as she searched our faces for a re­ac­tion.

“But what do you say to that?” she con­tin­ued with her left hand hit­ting the right to punc­tu­ate and un­der­score her strug­gle.

“I wouldn’t have rice, I wouldn’t have salt, I wouldn’t have sug­ar, and that is what I mean when I don’t have. I wouldn’t say I don’t have, and I have. You don’t get bless­ings by ly­ing.”

Joseph lament­ed that it is no easy task to ex­plain this sit­u­a­tion to sev­en hun­gry chil­dren.

“I doesn’t say any­thing, I just...” she broke off, look­ing away, clear­ly em­bar­rassed by her sit­u­a­tion.

“I does just lie down on my bed and cry.”

But Joseph said her mo­ments of vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty must be brief, as their wor­ries go be­yond hav­ing enough to eat.

Her youngest, a one-year-old boy, is the on­ly child not at school on that day. But even with his tiny pres­ence along with his moth­er, they fill the one room they live in - a space bare­ly big­ger than 10 by 12 feet. Two small mat­tress­es were propped against a wall to open the floor space dur­ing the day, while a small ta­ble clut­tered with plas­tic bowls, tooth­brush­es and an as­sort­ment of jars served as a kitchen. But how do eight peo­ple fit in a space so small, that both cam­era­man and pho­tog­ra­ph­er were forced to take turns go­ing in­side to get their req­ui­site turns with the moth­er? Our puz­zled faces seemed to have con­veyed that con­cern.

“From biggest to small­est, so the small ones, when they lie down here, their foot does be here,” she said, point­ing to the end of one of the beds.

She mo­tioned to the oth­er mat­tress, “I does try to fit up, I have my lit­tle cush­ion I put on the side to lie down with them. And I don’t have any bas­kets, ok? I put my clothes in garbage bags.”

Her youngest then wan­dered out­side and un­der the home, propped up by short and slim wood­en stilts. A small brown mixed-breed dog growled when any­one got too close to the child. The tod­dler then emerged tri­umphant­ly, a starch man­go in hand. He quick­ly tore in­to the skin with his ba­by teeth.

His moth­er scooped him up in her arms and asked us to fol­low her along a trail to the side of the home. A short walk brought us to a spring with brack­ish wa­ter which serves as their on­ly sup­ply of wa­ter.

“We don’t have no cur­rent and no wa­ter,” she said, as she splashed wa­ter on the child to wash away the dirt ac­cu­mu­lat­ed on his tiny feet from his so­journ un­der the home.

Look­ing in the di­rec­tion of her yard, she added, “In the back here, it nice in the day but when night fall you can’t see noth­ing. When night come they can’t study, so they have to study when they come from school un­til evening. I have to make din­ner be­fore night and if I don’t do that, I have to use my phone light, or a light that us­es bat­ter­ies. I don’t use lamps be­cause with chil­dren, I am very scep­ti­cal about lamps. You see any­thing that blaz­ing fire, I can­not af­ford to have a house burn­ing down.”

Joseph said she is not seek­ing a hand­out but rather the abil­i­ty to sus­tain her fam­i­ly in the long-term. Asked if she would be in­ter­est­ed in work­ing a steady, full-time job, Joseph seemed al­most in­sult­ed with the per­ceived in­sin­u­a­tion that she was not.

“Yes! Yes! I am not a lazy woman at all, I am will­ing to work. I am on the job hunt now and or­gan­is­ing all my doc­u­ments. It’s just to send them out and wait for a call. “I am look­ing for long-term be­cause you can ask for help to­day but what about next month? I can’t come back and ask peo­ple for help next month. I want some­thing where I can sus­tain my­self on a sol­id ground. I don’t want any­thing to­day for to­day, I have chil­dren grow­ing for years. I want some­thing sol­id,” she re­it­er­at­ed.

The moth­er said the two fa­thers of her sev­en chil­dren con­tribute when they can, but they too lack steady work.

Jo­can­na’s par­ents and grand­moth­er al­so of­fer some as­sis­tance when times are tougher than usu­al.

But self-aware of her sit­u­a­tion and how it can be per­ceived, Joseph pre­empt­ed the pub­lic’s re­ac­tion to her plight.

“They will say who tell you go and make all them chil­dren! Peo­ple will bash but I don’t mind. I have sev­en chil­dren, that is my choice and that is my fam­i­ly,” she said de­fi­ant­ly.

As if wait­ing for this mo­ment to ex­plain her de­ci­sions, Joseph con­tin­ued, “You could nev­er have re­grets when you make chil­dren. Be­cause it might be tough now but when they get old­er, you don’t know what bless­ings the Lord has in store for them. I want my chil­dren to reach for their dreams and their goals. I am not telling them to be a doc­tor or mag­is­trate, it’s what they want to be. Once it pos­i­tive and con­struc­tive, their moth­er is there to sup­port, 1,001 per cent.”

And Joseph said when her chil­dren pros­per, all sev­en will do their part to help oth­ers.

“I al­ways tell them, when you reach in life and you have mon­ey, don’t feel you could walk all over peo­ple, be­cause the same way peo­ple down, you were down the same way. So don’t watch down on an­oth­er per­son when you make it, try and help. Show love. Hum­ble your­self,” she said with a smile.

The fam­i­ly of eight is in need of build­ing ma­te­ri­als to ex­tend their home and food sup­port. Any­one wish­ing to as­sist Jo­can­na and her chil­dren can con­tact her at 726-1184.