Snaking away from In­niss Street in Saly­bia is a dirt track lit­tered with grav­el and sharp stones. Fol­low­ing an up­ward gra­di­ent, the track crescen­dos af­ter a minute’s walk be­fore it goes in­to a grad­ual de­cline, abrupt­ly end­ing at a makeshift bridge made up of four shab­by planks of wood. At the end of this ar­du­ous trace, at the top of a hill lives 66-year-old Har­ry Sookhoo, a man with no legs, all alone against this un­for­giv­ing ter­rain.

As Sookhoo came in­to view, his bare back mus­cles stood out in the mid­day sun. Glis­ten­ing with sweat, they coil and un­coil like rope as Sookhoo wield­ed his cut­lass, clear­ing away the tall wild grass on his land.

Every swing of the blade was done with a pre­ci­sion that tells the sto­ry of a re­al bush­man.

But with­out his legs, Sookhoo now us­es his arms to crawl about his yard. Clear­ing away one heap of tall grass which tow­ered over his now dras­ti­cal­ly re­duced frame, the el­der­ly man lift­ed his up­per body with his arms plant­ed firm­ly on the ground and us­ing them al­most as crutch­es, he swung his tor­so to move to his next lo­ca­tion.

Again, the blade made light work of the of­fend­ing green­ery be­fore the process was re­peat­ed.

A stren­u­ous task even for the phys­i­cal­ly whole.

Tak­ing a break from his labour, Sookhoo crawled un­der a tree next to his one-room gal­vanise shack, fur­nished on­ly with a grub­by mat­tress.

It was in this shade that Sookhoo lit a cig­a­rette and told us his sto­ry.

Like many peo­ple in Saly­bia, Sookhoo de­pend­ed on the sea for a liv­ing. How­ev­er, a do­mes­tic dis­pute in 2004 land­ed him in jail for al­most a decade.

At the end of his sen­tence, Sookhoo said he gave his life to God.

“I see a gate open, I stepped out and there it was, the church,” he said with a rem­i­nis­cent smile.

But Sookhoo’s new­found lease on life suf­fered a crip­pling blow in 2015.

“I went in the bush, hunt­ing and bare­foot. Some bone chook me be­low my foot and I didn’t take it on. I come out of the bush, I went by the doc­tor he gave me a treat­ment, it didn’t cure, I treat it, it didn’t cure, and it start to rot­ten the flesh,” he said, sub­con­scious­ly feel­ing for what was once his right leg.

“Doc­tor said it was a poi­so­nous bone. On­ly a snake or cra­paud bone, if you mash it that does keep the poi­son,” said the knowl­edge­able bush­man.

“They said a kind of black dis­ease does take your foot, I can’t re­mem­ber the name,” he added, be­fore macabre­ly men­tion­ing that the in­fec­tion was so bad the hos­pi­tal staff was forced to am­pu­tate his right leg.

Tragedy struck again in 2021 when Sookhoo said he no­ticed a chunk of flesh grow­ing in be­tween the toe­nails of his left leg.

“You ever see grow­ing flesh on a tur­tle? Some­thing like that,” he said, at­tempt­ing to de­scribe his ail­ment.

“My girls cut it with a ra­zor blade, it got swollen and start­ed to de­cay. The hos­pi­tal tried cut­ting it too be­fore they told me that they had to re­place one of the veins in the leg. But af­ter that, the foot start­ed to rot and smell so they had to cut off that one too,” Sookhoo ex­plained.

But with a sud­den burst of de­fi­ance in his voice as if at­tempt­ing to chase away any feel­ings of pity, Sookhoo raised his arms, coat­ed in dirt, and said with pride that he still fends for him­self, even if he must crawl to get what he needs.

“I does raise and move. I does make dis­tance too. I does go down the beach. From Rin­con to Matu­ra Riv­er mouth, how far that is?” he asked a cu­ri­ous neigh­bour who we gath­ered was his friend.

“About six miles? Yeah, I does make that in about three hours. No load though. If I have to go with load on my back, with my lit­tle gro­ceries and thing, it would take longer. Could be a two hours or three hours more.”

That day, his tri­ceps were not up to that task.

“I feel­ing a lit­tle weak, so I say let me stay home, clean up the place and plant some­thing,” he said.

But to get his ne­ces­si­ties is not on­ly a la­bo­ri­ous task but a treach­er­ous one as well, par­tic­u­lar­ly in this quin­tes­sen­tial coun­try­side where pave­ments are a lux­u­ry.

“Yes it is very dan­ger­ous be­cause my back turn to at least one ve­hi­cle and the one pass­ing close to me, some­times the dri­ver does not have any mer­cy,” he ex­plained be­fore adding with a chuck­le, “But I does make it from here to the beach in the eyes of God just pray­ing some­thing wouldn’t run in­to me.”

But Sookhoo lament­ed that on days where there is heavy rain­fall or when his strength is wan­ing, he de­pends on oth­ers to help him out, aid that comes at a cost which the pen­sion­er can ill af­ford.

“They will take a $40 or a $50. The fel­las will want some­thing be­cause it’s a hill they have to come up,” he said.

“So, I some­times have to bring things in piece by piece if I don’t have any mon­ey to pay them,” Sookhoo added.

But Sookhoo’s suit of ar­mour showed a chink when he lis­tened to the waves crash­ing on the rocks, an am­bi­ent sound fa­mil­iar to the com­mu­ni­ty.

It was then he cried while re­flect­ing on his vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty.

“When I go on the beach and see them fel­las go­ing out with their big boats and big en­gine, and they not car­ry­ing me! And I was a man who car­ry them in the sea when they were small!” he wept.

“That one does hurt me!”

“That is what I does be go­ing for, for a fish to eat but they don’t ...,” Sookhoo could not fin­ish the sen­tence.

Tak­ing a deep breath he wailed, “Look how I get nah boy!”

The shack where he lives does not have run­ning wa­ter or elec­tric­i­ty.

On­ly a torch­light stands be­tween him and the night.

Sookhoo be­lieves a mo­torised scoot­er would dras­ti­cal­ly im­prove his qual­i­ty of life. He ex­plained that he tried us­ing a wheel­chair but the steep­ness of the track lead­ing to his home does not make it a con­ducive so­lu­tion. Sookhoo said he would even help pay for it from his pen­sion in in­stal­ments if some­one could fa­cil­i­tate that op­tion.

Look­ing at the many cal­lous­es on his knuck­les due to the pres­sure placed on them to keep him mo­bile, he said there are a cou­ple peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty who would help him pave the track to his home for a smooth jour­ney if he gets the scoot­er.

The Saly­bia man said he would al­so ap­pre­ci­ate as­sis­tance from the state for an elec­tric­i­ty sup­ply to his home.

Any­one wish­ing to as­sist Sookhoo can reach one of his daugh­ters, Ameera, at 475-3687 or An­nie, a trust­ed neigh­bour, at 348-8678.