“One day I just get so tired and so frustrated I just throw all me things away, because like I didn’t able no more with this life. And is a woman come and help me and try to talk to me and tell me not to give up but to take it easy,” she said as tears rolled down her cheeks.
Doreen Chin is 71 years old, an age when she should be relaxing and enjoying her grandchildren but instead, according to her, she is fighting for her daily survival. The things she threw away in frustration were the items she had on sale at the confectionary stall she sets up in front of Guyana Stores.
She visited the office of Stabroek News and said she wanted her story published.
“I don’t know what else to do. I just fed up because is every day of my life I getting trouble. I don’t know what to do. I just want to get my own house now. If I could just get a lil thing somewhere,” she said pleadingly.
She has been living in Tigerbay for the past 19 years, renting what she described as a small room from a man who later died. She claimed that since the man’s death she has been tormented by his children, especially one who claims to have the power of attorney for the property.
“I don’t know why they doing this to me. They break down the bathroom and it have no toilet, so I does have to bathe right deh in the yard. And people videoing me and showing other people. I don’t know why they want to do this to an old woman like me,” she told me.
I asked her if she reported the matter to the police.
“Yes, I report to the police and dey went and arrest them and bring them to the station and dey check dem phones and they didn’t find nothing. So, I say, ‘Officer if you ain’t find nothing and you have to let them go, let them go’ and the police let them go,” she responded.
“Is not like I want to live deh, you know. I have a piece of land and I went to Food for the Poor and dey tell me that I have to get small children. I have one daughter but she big and I have two grandchildren. I went all to the Ministry of Social Protection and dey promise to help me but I not getting nowhere. I have some things to start the house, but I need help.”
As she spoke my heart broke. Chin walks with the assistance of a walking stick and really should not be in this tormented state at her age. In fact, no one should be living under such circumstances.
“My daughter can’t tek me really and my granddaughter when she cook, she would bring food for me, but she got she own children and so. I just want to get a lil place that is all I asking for. I cannot live like this anymore,” she lamented.
“Is too much I going through, too much. What really I must do now? That is why like I losing it and I throw away me things because I say you know wha else I could do?”
The question hung in the air because I was not sure how to answer her. She sat quietly as if she was deep in thought and later told me she was tired.
She was not keen on talking about her earlier life and maintained that all she needed was help to build a house. She said she has not paid rent since the landlord died and accused his son of dumping some of the materials she had acquired over time to build her house.
“I does have to cook, bathe and do everything outside,” she said.
“I have the land. I pay for it and I have all my papers I just need to help to get out. I can’t continue to live like this this. If you want you could come and see where I living,” she told me and soon after said she wanted to leave.
A colleague of mine took Chin home and it was observed that she lives in a tiny room at the bottom of a two-storey building. The room is dark and has no window. But she told me earlier that she has electricity.
According to my colleague at the back of the house there is a pile of concrete blocks, clothes and kitchen utensils. While she was showing my colleague the area, a young man, who now claims ownership of the building, asked her to move out of the passageway since he wanted to pass. She refused and the young man impatiently and forced himself pass, grazing her in the process. She immediately hit him with her cane and the angry young man threatened to kill her.
Other persons who live in the building intervened and calmed the situation.
I spoke to the young man in question and he denied tormenting the woman or recording her as she took a bath.
“Why would I want to video an old woman like that? I does try to help this woman and she just have all kinds of things pile up in this place, rotten things. I trying to get a toilet for her, but I have to wait on GWI. My brother build a bathroom and tell she, she could use it but she just bathing in the open,” he said.
“Madam, it ain’t easy and it is not fair what she is doing. She is a big woman; she could be me grandmother. You wouldn’t believe the amount of things this woman tell me. I just can’t understand. I just ask her in a kind way if she could move, she can’t be doing these things, she creating a hazard in this place and then she make police come and pick up me and me brother, is an embarrassment,” he continued.
He accused the elderly woman of using the vilest of profanities and exposing herself in public.
“That is what she does be doing and it is not nice. I have children. It is hard to see a big woman behaving like that. Sometimes I think she is going crazy. I am not a doctor, but this is getting worse. I help she. I can’t do it anymore. I am not a heartless person. It is too much. She could carry them stuff on her land. I helping her. She should be thankful for her the little help,” he added.
“And you know what? This is not even a good environment, a good place for she to be in,” he said.
I couldn’t agree with him more. Chin does need to get out of that location but as it is right now, she does not have many options.
I asked her if she might want to move to the Night Shelter until she can get her house sorted out.
“No, no, I don’t want to live there. I not on the street, you know. I just need help. I have to get out of there, and they need to stop tormenting me,” she responded.
I am hoping that with some intervention this pensioner can get some help. No one, especially in at her age, should have to exist under such circumstances.
