KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Usu­al­ly, around this time, Seema Ram­sa­roop and her eight chil­dren would be busy dec­o­rat­ing their Cou­va home in prepa­ra­tion for Christ­mas. Shop­ping would have al­ready been done and cook­ing would have start­ed.

But with Ram­sa­roop’s com­mon-law hus­band Kr­ish­na Ram­per­sad’s death ear­li­er this year, fend­ing off snakes and mos­qui­toes is how the fam­i­ly will cel­e­brate the birth of Christ.

From liv­ing with pipe-borne wa­ter, elec­tric­i­ty and a roof over their heads, Ram­sa­roop; her chil­dren, ages three to 21; twin grand­sons, age two and daugh­ter-in-law, 23 now live in a home that re­sem­bles a cow­shed.

In Feb­ru­ary, the sole bread­win­ner died of a heart at­tack and days lat­er Ram­per­sad’s rel­a­tive told them they had to move out.

She stood her ground say­ing the house was left by her hus­band for their chil­dren.

The fam­i­ly was even­tu­al­ly evict­ed in June and the house was de­mol­ished.

The fur­ni­ture and ap­pli­ances were dumped out­side Ram­sa­roop’s ma­ter­nal home in Princes Town. Rain de­stroyed their be­long­ings as they had nowhere to store them.

With­out any­where to live, she moved in­to a shack lo­cat­ed near­by.

Ham­pers of food and clothes were giv­en to the fam­i­ly, but lit­tle was done to change their lives. The chil­dren’s moth­er said she ap­proached the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion and was in­clud­ed in a lengthy list of so­cial cas­es who are await­ing ac­com­mo­da­tion.

“It’s been two months now we are liv­ing in the bush here and it is the worst we’ve ex­pe­ri­enced.

“This is like where an­i­mals would live. It’s just mud all around,” Ram­sa­roop told the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day.

It was a task for the news team to reach the shack in Glen­roy, Princes Town as the walk­way of bro­ken bricks was sink­ing in slip­pery and thick mud.

Rust­ed, jagged gal­vanise sheets thrown to­geth­er made up the out­door toi­let and bath area. A worn piece of vinyl cov­ered the floor­ing of the shack.

A bro­ken bed and two pieces of sponge are what they sleep on. Two stoves, a few dish­es and do­nat­ed cloth­ing are all they pos­sess.

Bun­dled to­geth­er in the shack the fam­i­ly have no idea what Christ­mas Day will bring.

“They went to a Christ­mas par­ty over the week­end and that will be it for them. We’re try­ing to see if we can get help from Habi­tat for Hu­man­i­ty to build some­thing.

“I sent in an ap­pli­ca­tion and I was told that there was a process so I would have to wait. It’s been two or three months and there has been noth­ing. I went to HDC twice and they told me I would have to wait and they would get back to me.”

Life has been a strug­gle, Ram­sa­roop said.

Grow­ing up in pover­ty, at 15, she be­gan a re­la­tion­ship with Ram­per­sad, who was then 33.

At 17, she was preg­nant and moved in­to his home. She had ten chil­dren and suf­fered a life of abuse at his hands un­til he died.