SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Christ­mas is sup­posed to be a time of joy, hope and ex­cite­ment, but for the peo­ple of Spring Vil­lage in Val­sayn, it is any­thing but that.

There will be no Christ­mas cheer or cel­e­bra­tions to­day in the squat­ting set­tle­ment, which was rav­aged by rag­ing flood­wa­ters near­ly a month ago.

More than 300 af­fect­ed res­i­dents in the com­mu­ni­ty have had to post­pone their Christ­mas prepa­ra­tions as they try to clean up and re­place de­stroyed items to re­sume their lives. Left to fend for them­selves as they strug­gle to get back on their feet, many lived with the hope they would re­ceive the Gov­ern­ment's dis­as­ter re­lief grant from the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices (MS­DFS) be­fore Christ­mas.

 But up to last week, it seemed like they had been for­got­ten.

Kissoondaie Har­ry­dass be­came emo­tion­al when the Sun­day Guardian vis­it­ed the com­mu­ni­ty on Mon­day, six days be­fore Christ­mas, as she de­scribed los­ing her world­ly pos­ses­sions when wa­ter over­flowed the banks of a near­by riv­er and gushed in­to her Col­lege Road Ex­ten­sion home.

Har­ry­dass, 67, was on­ly able to save her 73-year-old wheel­chair-bound sis­ter. For six days the sis­ters took refuge in the up­per lev­el of their home which has no toi­let or bath­room fa­cil­i­ties.

"I don't want to go through that ex­pe­ri­ence again. Many days I cried ask­ing God for his in­ter­ven­tion. It was not two things we went through," the pen­sion­er said, wip­ing away tears.

She ex­pressed grat­i­tude to strangers and her MP, Khadi­jah Ameen, who wad­ed through chest-high wa­ter to de­liv­er hot meals, bot­tled wa­ter, and ham­pers in their time of need.

"Up to now we ain't even see a min­is­ter or gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial in the back here," she com­plained. “Is like we don’t ex­ist.”

Hav­ing gone through hell and back, Har­ry­dass said "I thought by now we would have re­ceived pay­ments from the min­istry to help us get back on our feet in time for the sea­son. But we are still wait­ing. Is just one dis­ap­point­ment af­ter the oth­er."

Har­ry­dass' re­frig­er­a­tor, stove, cab­i­nets, chest of draw­ers, and wardrobe were af­fect­ed by flood­wa­ters.

This, she claimed, damp­ened her Christ­mas spir­it.

"It looks like this would be my worst Christ­mas ever be­cause my house is still in a mess. I don't even have a fridge to put my food­stuff. How could I think about Christ­mas when I am not even com­fort­able in my house?"

Spring Village Resident Anil Boodoosingh speaks about his ordeal since the flooding.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

The res­cue

Har­ry­dass' neigh­bour Anil Boodoos­ingh was busy bail­ing out wa­ter that had set­tled un­der his house since last month.

The wa­ter de­stroyed Boodoos­ingh's wash­ing ma­chine and freez­er, both worth $10,000, and the foun­da­tion of his home.

Amid his dif­fi­cul­ties, the fa­ther of one did the most un­like­ly thing at the time: he res­cued four mem­bers of a fam­i­ly who were trapped in­side their home, which was al­most com­plete­ly sub­merged in wa­ter.

Boodoos­ingh wel­comed the fam­i­ly and housed and fed them for four days.

"In times of dif­fi­cul­ty, we have to help one an­oth­er," he said.

 Boodoos­ingh de­sires to leave the dis­as­ter-strick­en area.

"But go where? I don't have mon­ey to in­vest in a piece of land or build a house. So, I guess I have to stay here and bite the bul­let."

Boodoos­ingh said Christ­mas was the last thing on his mind.

"We have more im­por­tant things to study than Christ­mas. Right now I am hop­ing I get a lit­tle bonus to re­place the wash­ing mon­ey I lost. If that doesn't hap­pen, I will just have to stand the grind like every­body else be­cause it looks like we ain't get­ting the grants in a hur­ry."

A tearful Kissoondale Harrydass recalls last month's devasting floods and how it affected her wheelchair-bound sister, right.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Re­liv­ing the flood was too painful for heart pa­tient Savi­ta Sama­roo, 64, who could not stop cry­ing.

"The wa­ter de­stroyed every­thing, ex­cept this," Sama­roo said, point­ing to a tele­vi­sion set in­side her one-room gal­vanise hut at Col­lege Road.

"But I have to thank God for life. Do you know what it is to start over from scratch when you don't have a pen­ny in your name and your health is not good? You lose all hope...that is how I'm feel­ing right now," Sama­roo said, burst­ing in­to tears.

She es­ti­mat­ed her loss­es at $20,000.

This was the fifth and most dam­ag­ing flood­ing that Sama­roo had ex­pe­ri­enced for the year.

“Here not safe any­more. I wish I could just go from here and not come back.”

As for cel­e­brat­ing Christ­mas, Sama­roo said that was the least of her con­cern.

"The way things go­ing and no help forth­com­ing it ain't go have no Christ­mas for me. You, tell me, how I could en­joy Christ­mas when the mat­tress I sleep­ing on I bor­row it. And I have noth­ing to cook.”

Sama­roo al­so felt the min­istry has been tak­ing too long to dis­trib­ute the grants to help flood vic­tims re­build their lives.

"What is the keep back? Peo­ple suf­fer­ing out here and noth­ing do­ing.” Sama­roo's broth­er, Lutch­man Ed­ward who was seen dec­o­rat­ing a Christ­mas tree on his ve­ran­da said this was his year­ly tra­di­tion.

“Be­sides the tree, there will be no Christ­mas cel­e­bra­tion at my house. I can't af­ford ham, turkey, or any lav­ish dish or ex­pen­sive drinks. The most I could buy is a few cas­cadoux and cur­ry that.”

Savitri Mohammed and her two children, Aditya, left, and Avira right.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Sur­viv­ing the flood on a bed for six days

Sav­it­ri Mo­hammed, her hus­band, and their two chil­dren sur­vived on a four-by-six-foot bed sur­round­ed by murky wa­ter for five days.

"We had to ra­tion a loaf of bread for two days be­cause we had noth­ing else to eat," Mo­hammed re­called.

The fam­i­ly al­so used a hose to take baths in the flood­ed room and re­lieved them­selves in buck­ets lined with plas­tic bags.

Mo­hammed, 34, said her heart broke in­to a thou­sand pieces when her six-year-old son, Aditya, com­plained of hunger pangs and her four-year-old daugh­ter, Avi­ra, de­vel­oped ear pains and fever.

"We could not get out be­cause the wa­ter was too high, and no am­bu­lance could have ven­tured in. Des­per­a­tion and fear be­gan to set in. I would not lie to you, I held on­to my chil­dren and cried be­cause I felt help­less­ly trapped in­side my home not know­ing where our next meal was com­ing from and if my daugh­ter would get med­ical at­ten­tion.”

Mo­hammed lives near the end of Col­lege Road which is a nar­row dirt track.

The area is pop­u­lat­ed with hous­es built of thin ply­wood.

Makeshift out­hous­es al­so dot the land­scape."I had to call MP Ameen for help who came in a dingy and dropped off food sup­plies and med­ica­tion. Thank God she came oth­er­wise I don't know what might have been the out­come."

Mo­hammed, too, wish­es to re­lo­cate to a safer lo­ca­tion for the sake of her chil­dren, but with her hus­band as the sole provider, it is im­pos­si­ble.

Mo­hammed said she couldn't be­lieve her eyes when the wa­ter re­ced­ed and part of her wood­en floor­ing dis­in­te­grat­ed and her ply­wood walls split open.

Mo­hammed's top pri­or­i­ty is to re­pair her home.

"Cel­e­brat­ing Christ­mas is some­thing we will have to do with­out. I al­ready know we can't af­ford any Christ­mas gifts for my chil­dren. This was told to them. Things are al­ready hard for us. The flood has on­ly made our sit­u­a­tion worst."

They are liv­ing in de­spair and dis­com­fort, ac­cord­ing to Mo­hammed.

While tip­toe­ing over the rot­ted floor­ing, Mo­hammed ex­pressed her con­cern about the de­lay in the min­istry's grant.

Shar­da John and her broth­er Naresh Bas­deo of Pil­lai Street look for­ward to Christ­mas every year.

Resident Anil Boodoodsingh is seen bailing out water which settled under his house following last month's devasting floods in Spring Village, Valsayn.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

How­ev­er, hav­ing lost $60,0000 in fur­ni­ture and house­hold ap­pli­ances, the hol­i­day is not the same.

Nar­gis Bas­deo, their moth­er, was al­so ad­mit­ted to the hos­pi­tal.

"Mom tried to light one of the burn­ers in the stove, and it ex­plod­ed. The oven door flew out and struck her chest," John said.

John could not say if wa­ter en­tered the gas line and caused the stove to mal­func­tion.

"We had to rush her to the hos­pi­tal where she was treat­ed and dis­charged."

Fol­low­ing the flood, John's two chil­dren ex­pe­ri­enced vom­it­ing and di­ar­rhoea, as well as skin in­fec­tions al­leged­ly caused by the con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed wa­ter.

She pre­dict­ed a bleak Christ­mas be­cause she has no food and no presents for her chil­dren un­der her tree.

As if that wasn't enough, John re­vealed that her hus­band spent $120,000 at a pri­vate hos­pi­tal last Thurs­day for two stent place­ments.

"We had to bor­row the mon­ey to save his life. The prob­lems are nev­er-end­ing. When it rains it sure­ly pours.”

Bas­deo, fight­ing back tears, said he nev­er imag­ined their lives would be turned up­side down.

"Who could en­joy Christ­mas with all these trou­bles, tri­als, and tribu­la­tions? I was hop­ing to re­ceive the grant be­fore Christ­mas, but that is not go­ing to hap­pen. We will cer­tain­ly face a blue Christ­mas," he said.

Mo­han Sinanan, 55, of Ben­ny Lane, could not hide his emo­tions as he re­flect­ed on the three days he lived in the pavil­ion of the Spring Vil­lage Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre with on­ly the clothes on his back. Sinanan showed the height that the wa­ter rose in his con­gest­ed gal­vanise shack.

Stroke victim Mohan Sinanan pleads for assistance following last month's devasting floods.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Speak­ing with a slur, Sinanan, who lives alone, said he be­came wor­ried see­ing the vol­ume of wa­ter forc­ing its way in­side his home.

"I had to flee to the pavil­ion where I stayed for three days un­til the wa­ter went down," Sinanan said.

Sinanan was joined by oth­er flood vic­tims who re­ceived meals and blan­kets from the Good Samar­i­tans.

"Strangers helped us. It just showed there are still good peo­ple out there."

Up­on re­turn­ing to his emp­ty home, Sinanan slept on a soaked mat­tress which caused him to fall ill.

"The am­bu­lance had to take me to the hos­pi­tal where I was ad­mit­ted for a few days for bron­chi­tis."

Sinanan, who sur­vives on a $1,300 dis­abil­i­ty grant each month, said it would take him more than a year to get his life back on track. "There is noth­ing to cel­e­brate or cheer about this Christ­mas. Every­body has their fair share of wor­ries. On­ly God knows how we will over­come our ob­sta­cles."

Lutchman Edwards is seen setting up his Christmas tree at his Spring Village home last week.

ABRAHAM DIAZ