JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Friday, April 11, 2025

Single father trying to rebuild destroyed home for son’s birthday

by

Sascha Wilson
1193 days ago
20220103
FLASHBACK December 2021: Indra Beharry assists her son Marcus Bruce recover personal items from his home that was destroyed by a landslide a few days before Christmas Day on Moruga Road, Cachipe Village, Moruga.

FLASHBACK December 2021: Indra Beharry assists her son Marcus Bruce recover personal items from his home that was destroyed by a landslide a few days before Christmas Day on Moruga Road, Cachipe Village, Moruga.

RISHI RAGOONATH

With fi­nan­cial as­sis­tance from two good samar­i­tans and ma­te­ri­als he sal­vaged af­ter his home was de­stroyed by a land­slip, a sin­gle fa­ther is work­ing hard to have a “home” ready in time for his son’s birth­day on Thurs­day.

While the wood­en struc­ture would be in­com­plete and with­out a wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply, Mar­cus Bruce says they will be more com­fort­able than their cur­rent sit­u­a­tion.

Bruce, a self-em­ployed con­struc­tion work­er, has been stay­ing at his rel­a­tive’s house with his two sons ages two and four since a land­slip de­stroyed their home at Moru­ga Road, Cachipe Vil­lage, mere days be­fore Christ­mas.

How­ev­er, they have been sleep­ing on a mat­tress in the hall as space is an is­sue.

He found a spot to build not far from his house and has been us­ing ma­te­ri­als he sal­vaged from his home to re­build.

The home of his sis­ter, which was in front of his, al­so crum­bled.

His sis­ter, Kim­ber­ly Bruce, and her two chil­dren ages 16 months and sev­en years are say­ing by their moth­er, but she al­so need help to re­build. Kim­ber­ly who is un­em­ployed suf­fered a mis­car­riage days af­ter their homes were de­stroyed.

When con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Bruce was on his way to pur­chase ma­te­r­i­al with the mon­ey he re­ceived from the two peo­ple.

“I don’t know how far it would reach but I still thank­ful for what I get,” said Bruce. He is hop­ing to com­plete at least one room be­fore his son’s fifth birth­day on Thurs­day so they could move in­to the house to be a “bit more com­fort­able.”

His old­er son’s tablet was al­so de­stroyed dur­ing the in­ci­dent. As a re­sult, he said his son is un­able to do on­line class­es.

Mean­while, the land­slip is al­so threat­en­ing the homes of two oth­er fam­i­lies as well as two par­lours. Celia Louban who lives with her hus­band and four chil­dren is wor­ried that her home will be next to go.

She said when the land be­gan cav­ing ten months ago she re­port­ed it to the au­thor­i­ties, but noth­ing was done.

“Since it start­ed to move it just drop in a sink and just con­tin­ue. The more the rain falls, the more it just con­tin­ue sink­ing. The tank stand went three or four months ago…The walls in­side the house start­ed to crack and out­side the toi­let start­ed to crack,” she told Guardian Me­dia.

An­oth­er res­i­dent Lynette Coop­er, 58, who al­so runs a par­lour along the Moru­ga Road is con­cerned that her busi­ness which is her on­ly means of in­come will be de­stroyed.

When Guardian Me­dia reached out to the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port, an of­fi­cial said the mat­ter is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed.

Any­one will­ing to as­sist the fam­i­lies could con­tact 360-8339.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored