Many people are looking forward to the start of 2008, but for Sonia Hinds her only wish is that she would be able to survive what she is certain would be another difficult year.
“I am just wishing that I survive next year and that my life would become easier. It is really hard sometimes and although I believe in God, sometimes when I by myself I does wonder why this had to happen to me and if it really worth staying alive,” were the grim words of the woman who will soon be 50 years old. But soon after she uttered those words she reminded herself that the Lord has kept her thus far and He must have a reason for keeping her alive.
Just over seven years ago, on the night of August 5, 2000 her life as she knew it disintegrated and she was forced to make some major adjustments. That was the night the man she loved and with whom she had been sharing a live-in relationship for a number of years, attacked her with a cutlass and left her in a pool of blood at their Mocha Arcadia, East Bank Demerara home. The attack resulted in Hinds losing both of her hands near the elbows and sight in one of her eyes. Several other physical scars were also left about her body.
The man, Courtney Purlette, is serving a 15-year sentence for the attack, but for Hinds no jail term can compensate for what he did to her life. “Before that happen to me I was a woman who was up and about. I worked and I was also a seamstress. I did not have to depend on anyone for anything. Now I have to be depending on any and everyone and the little money I get never seem enough,” the woman lamented.
When Stabroek News caught up with her recently at her North Barnwell home, which is the area behind Mocha that has no real physical infrastructure such as road, electricity and water, Hinds was doing her laundry. She proudly informed the newspaper that in the last seven years she has re-learned to do many things for herself, which she could have done when she first lost both of her hands. She not only does her own laundry but feeds herself, fetches water and bathes. She does all of this without the prosthetic hands which where donated to her by the Ptolemy Reid Rehabilitation Centre soon after she lost her own. She related that a few years ago they became damaged and when she took them back to the centre she was told that there was nothing that could be done to repair them.
“So I had to learn to do things just like that and to tell you the truth it is much more easy than with the prosthetic hands because they were heavy. … at this age I don’t want to be fetching that weight and it use to have me hot because I always had to wear long sleeves when I going out,” she related.
“So I had to find a technique to feed myself and wash and so on,” she said, while explaining that her clothes are never really dirty, but she soaks them for a while with soap powder then rubs them up and down a scrubbing board with her elbows. She still needs assistance to hang them on the line to dry, but she picks them up herself, folds them and puts them away.
Afraid to be alone
Hinds said life has not been good, but she has been coping. Since the incident, she has managed to build a three-bedroom concrete house, which she initially shared with her daughter, niece and granddaughter. Her daughter and granddaughter have since migrated to Barbados, where her only other child, an older daughter, had been residing. Her niece now has a child and Hinds says she knows that one day she would also move on. “That is what I am afraid of, I cannot keep back the young people from making a life for themselves, but then again I cannot do a lot of things for myself like cooking and cleaning the house and I am afraid. Sometimes I ask God what will become of me in another few years, how would I survive.”
She said her 21-year-old niece was very helpful but whenever she had to go out, she was left on her own. The house was built with the severance payment she received from Guyana Stores where she had worked as a security guard and the little assistance she had received from kind-hearted persons.
She now depends on her pension and public assistance she receives from the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security for her survival, both of which are woefully inadequate. “It is hard trying to survive. You see this is a farming area and I have to pay people to weed my yard because it grows so fast and many times I don’t have the money. My daughters sometimes send little money for me but over there [Barbados] hard too and they have to look after themselves so I can’t depend on them but whatever little they send I does be grateful,” she said.
Whenever the situation becomes unbearable, Hinds said, she regrets building her house in such a remote area as she feels if she were living in an area with road, electricity and running water, life would have been easier. She dreads the day when she may be left on her own, while stating that her male relatives have not been very supportive of her so she cannot even depend on any of them to chop the grass in her yard.
While she has a generator, Hinds said, it was difficult to buy gas for it so on many occasions it was not on. The only place she goes is to church on Saturdays at the Mocha Seventh Day Adventist Church and she does not do so every Saturday as whenever it rains the terrain becomes so difficult that she is unable to trek the several miles back and forth. Her days are spent at home doing almost nothing, as whenever she is finished doing whatever little she can do for herself she would just sit around the house. She reads the bible and the newspaper sometimes but not on a regular basis since reading puts too much strain on her only eye.
She has a childhood friend who lives some distance away from her house and she would visit her from time to time and in turn the friend would also visit her. “But it is not as if we does do that everyday, so see my life is really at home doing nothing. My sister who lives in Mocha would go with me Georgetown whenever I have to go and transact any business and so on but that is not regular.”
Forgiveness
and eye pass
In 2005, Hinds was awarded $21.1 million in damages in the High Court for the pain, suffering and loss of amenities and injuries she sustained as a consequence of the brutal attack. Her former partner was expected to pay that sum after her then lawyer, Nigel Hughes had moved to the court in an ex parte application. To this date Hinds is yet to receive a cent of the judgement and is not optimistic about receiving any of the money. She said some time after the judgement was handed down she had received a message from the Human Services Ministry and there was a glimmer of hope that maybe she was getting some money from the judgement. But when she made contact with the ministry it was only to be told by a social worker, who was working with Purlette in the prison, that he wanted to see her to ask her forgiveness. She said she decided to go to the prison with her sister and the social worker. The man, whom she once loved, told her how much he was sorry for what he did to her. “But I didn’t even look at him I just ask he what sorry could do for me. I tell he that before he do all of this to me he use to do other things and tell me sorry and he still turn around and do this to me. I tell he I cannot take care of myself and I keeping young people back from moving on with their lives because they have to hang around me to look after me,” the woman said. She said she reminded him of the fact that she was never in want of anything before the attack and in fact she use to help maintain her sister’s children, since her sibling had died and left a number of under aged children behind. It is one of those children who is now living with Hinds and whom she now depends on for her very survival.
She said the social worker then asked him about the money that the court awarded her and he said he knew nothing of it until a friend showed him a newspaper report. He told her that he had no finances and
as such there was no way he could give her any money. She reminded him that he has a son who is an international boxer who could at least assist in giving her some money even if it did not amount to anything close to what the court had awarded her. But to date Hinds is yet to receive any money.
On a sad note, Hinds said what happened to her in 2000 has caused people “to take their eyes and pass me. Girl this thing does really cause eye pass people does be saying all kinds of things about me and even now sometimes I don’t want to walk down the road…”
She said it was embarrassing and she does not receive the kind of assistance she needs from her family because they are poor. “Sometimes it really gets to me but I does try. I try to make whatever I could of my life but people are really unkind sometimes. But anyway God knows best.”
New Year wish
For the New Year Hinds is hoping that her area would receive electricity, running water and roads. Or maybe she would get the opportunity to move to an area where these already exist. She pointed out that should she have electricity she may then get a washing machine.
She said she is badly in need of some financial assistance and hopes that this year would be better for her in that regard. She said if she had a steady income other than her pension and public assistance she might be able to pay someone to assist her for a few hours every day in her home. “So if my niece has to move on then I can get someone to come just for a few hours to especially cook for me and clean my house. I know life would be easier then and I would not have to be such a burden on my niece and others. So those are the things I am wishing for this year.”
She also wants some mechanism to be put in place which would see pensioners and persons with disabilities exempted from the Value Added Tax. “I know that would also make my life easier,” she stressed.
So even as Hinds commenced the interview on a bleak note as she felt she might not survive another year she ended it on a brighter note as she feels should any of the above wishes be granted her chances of surviving another difficult year will be more than likely. “I will keep praying and God will see me through.
“He ensured that I had pepper pot and black cake for Christmas just like everyone else and even though sometimes I doubt it, I know he is going to keep me going.”
