She wrung her hands and the tears she had been fighting began to flow down her cheeks; her emotional pain was almost tangible.
“I would say it is abuse. It is emotional abuse that is how I feel, it can’t be nothing else,” she shared haltingly.
Karen (not her real name) was not talking about an intimate partner relationship, she was describing the relationship she has with her extended family.
What started out as a conversation on how the 20-year-old survives on her police constable salary, quickly moved to her unburdening herself to this writer and ended with both in tears.
It was almost as if Karen just wanted someone to listen. The load she carried on her thin frame at some point became so heavy that it had to be unburdened, even if it was to an almost complete stranger.
“My basic salary is $45,000 a month and even though I don’t have children it does be very hard for me,” Karen said.
“… It does be $10,000 a month I spend on transportation alone then I does have to help to pay the rent, then we get light bill and water bill and then food does have to buy, so as soon as I get pay I does have no money.”
Initially she leaned back in the seat as she spoke but as the words spilled out, she leaned forward in an agitated manner giving the impression that she desperately wanted this writer to understand what she was describing.
“And my lil brother he in school and sometimes I does help to send him to school… It is not easy because nobody in the house working right now, I is the fourth of seven children but I alone working.
“Yes is me alone working. My mother nor my big sister them and my big brother not working right now,” she said, as she must have seen the surprise on the writer’s face.
Though hurt, it is obvious that she loves her family as she tried to explain why the other adults in the home are not working.
“You see going to school and thing and the family struggling; they drop out a school to help out with the family and so is nah no real work is lil odds and ends. So is not like they don’t work at all, but right now them not working. Sometimes they would get work but right now nobody ain’t working.”
She pauses for a while, thinking.
“And you know when I lef school, I didn’t do so well, but I say I joining the police force because I know is a stable job and I could get benefits. I don’t want end up like them,” she said.
“Look we living in a small two-bedroom house and before then we move from place to place; is like we renting here and there. But the place right now it small. You see [she pointed to a small wooden house a short distance away) that house over there? It must be smaller than that.”
“And is seven children and then one of me big sister get two children and the other one and my big brother get one child each…
“Sleep? Sometimes I don’t even do that,” she said when asked about sleeping arrangements. “We have two queen size beds in the room and sometimes the place does be so hot and mosquito biting we does tek one of the beds and carry it outside to sleep.
“No, not outside in the hall because me mother does tell we don’t pack up she chair to sleep… outside in the veranda, we does tek it and make it a bedroom. And is not you know, a big veranda, if you get up in the morning and stretch [she did the action] people passing on the road could see you.
“So sometimes I wake up is like I feel like I ain’t sleep because you have to lie down with you foot pull up. I so accustomed to it that now I sleeping on a bed by me self and me foot still pull up because that is how I have to sleep when I deh home,” she explained.
For the past few months, Karen has been spending most of her days at the home of a benevolent person to whom she opened up, and who offered her temporary rescue in her home.
“I telling you she is like a mother. I does talk to her and she does advise me so I don’t go home much, but you know I still not saving because they does still call me and I does have to give them money because is me alone working.
“My mother was not too happy when I move, well I ain’t really move, but once they getting the money I don’t think they mind because is like nobody don’t even call me only when they want money. Is more space they get so I guess…”
At this point, Karen started to cry and fought for words.
“My family is like they just use me… I couldn’t talk anything because they would say is ‘because you is a police and you working but don’t believe I can’t beat you’ so I can’t even talk for my rights. It is abuse, emotional abuse.
“My mother does sleep in one room by herself with my baby sister and you know my brother does get he girlfriend sleeping over by we and I does say she get a home why she don’t sleep there why she must come and tek up space wah we don’t get.
“And even with the food, sometimes when you go home tired from work you want a hot meal sometimes is none because a cousin or somebody come and eat out you food and you can’t talk. So I didn’t even use to eat home.”
And the job has not been easy either.
“I does try my best at work but is like sometimes you best not enough, is like people want to keep you down. But I staying in the force what else I could do now? I have to work but I have to start saving because I want something better for me.
“I don’t even have no boyfriend right now that is not my focus because I don’t want to end up getting a baby like me sisters, I want better.”
Her father?
“I don’t even know my father. Right now he is in jail. Yes, my mother make six of us for him but he does be in and out of jail all the time. I ain’t see he since I was a lil girl. He come out a jail but he didn’t come around we and he does be in and out of jail so is like I don’t have a father.
“So you see that is me life but I have to do what I have to do I can’t give up.
“But sometimes it is like too much, it is just too much. But thank God I don’t have any children. I don’t know how to say no yet but I will have to say no sometime. I can’t allow my family to just take all my money…” Karen said with her head hung to one side.
“I don’t know how long I could stay here but I don’t want to back home, if you call that home. And I don’t want to be in the barracks. But I does pray and I will pray and work hard.”
Women’s Chronicles will remain in contact with Karen and follow her journey as she works towards improving her circumstances.
