“They treating us like total garbage.”
These are the words of a 39-year-old Block 22, Wismar Linden resident, who says she and other members of her family are being discriminated against by the Region Ten community after what she believes was a case of mistaken identity led to a relative being quarantined for two weeks on suspicion that she had the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
The woman, a hair dresser, asked not to be named as she doubted that the treatment she and her family is receiving from people she once thought were friends will change after she has spoken out about it.
She told Sunday Stabroek that while she cannot recall the exact date when their troubles started, she could detail what she and her family have experienced at the hands of many neighbours and other members of the community after an ambulance showed up to take her niece to a COVID-19 quarantine facility.
She and her niece live on opposite sides of the same property. “The day when the ambulance came to pick up my niece, one of the persons in the ambulance push out they head to shout that my niece has the disease,” she explained.
The hair dresser and the other members of her family, including her niece, have all tested negative for COVID-19 but up to today they continue to be treated differently and shunned in some instances.
“If they see us walking on the road, they throw their slangs and say all sorts of hurtful things… [implying] we got the disease” she explained. “In our own yard, we don’t go out in the day… Why? Well because if they see us, they come out and have all kinds of nasty things to say,” she added, while adding that they spend their days indoors.
While the attitude towards them is hurtful, she says that it is quite bizarre for her since she has never shown a “bad face” to any of her neighbours.
The woman explained that a Facebook post is believed to have been the source of the family’s woes. Late last month, 49-year-old Linden resident Sydney Trellis, called ‘Jacket,’ died after being hospitalised in the COVID-19 Intensive Care Unit at the Georgetown Public Hospital. The hairdresser explained that following his passing, a young woman who is believed to be a tenant of the man posted on social media that she had been calling the COVID-19 hotline but had gotten no help. The hair dresser said that she followed the woman’s post and believes that her niece was somehow mistaken for the person who made the Facebook post. “I believe they mix up something and think it was my niece who called and that’s how they collect my niece,” the woman said.
The woman explained that the deceased man knew a lot of people in the area. She added that the father of her niece’s children was also a friend of the now dead man. “They [people in the neighbourhood] saying that she get it from her children father. But even he didn’t go around the man [Trellis] for a while. No one in the yard was leaving because we all do work from home,” she said.
Her niece was taken to the Diamond Diagnostic Centre before she was sent back home after tests showed that she was negative for COVID-19. “When she came back, I thought they would change because her test came back negative but it didn’t change,” she pointed out. She further noted that it is ignorance about the disease that has led to persons still believing that she had the fatal disease. During the two weeks that her niece was gone, she said her family was stigmatized by persons in their neighborhood. “It start off with them passing and coughing, then they started calling out “COVID19! COVID19”. My children and I can’t even go out in the yard without them having something to say. They throw slangs and say all sort of things,” she said.
The woman also complained that she and her children cannot go to the shops in the area because the shop owners do not want them in their businesses. Initially, they would go to the shops and while everyone else were allowed to shop normally, she observed that her money would be disinfected after being received by the shop keepers. “Is only ours! I realise we are the problem after I see that they only disinfecting my money,” she exclaimed.
Now, the family tries to get others to do its shopping. “To buy stuff from shops, we have to ask people to buy for us. And even that isn’t working because once they realise is for us the person buying for, they don’t want to sell,” she explained. She further said that she would be lucky now if she could find people to go to the shops on her behalf since almost everyone in the neighborhood is under the impression that her entire family has the coronavirus.
Getting by
With her family’s standing in Block 22 now in question, the woman noted that her hair dressing business has suffered a huge blow since most of her customers are from the area. “They done hear about this and now I’m sure they won’t want me to do their hair,” she stated, before adding that she is thankful that one of her neighbours has not turned on her following all the spread of the false information.
She also said that her children have been getting help from their teachers with their school work and for that she is also grateful. “The online class are normal, I haven’t seen a change in their teacher’s response to them. So, I guess the ‘news’ ain’t reach them” she said.
However, she said her fiancé recently lost his job due to the rumours and now they are depending on the little money they have saved and handouts they have received from persons sharing out hampers and other food stuff in the area. She now is financially responsible for herself, her children, her niece and her niece’s children and her elderly mother. “At first my fiancé was looking after all of us but since things gone from bad to worse… it’s getting very hard and I just wish I could get wings and fly,” she admitted.
Sad reality
The hairdresser said that the experience is both baffling and heartbreaking for her since the very people treating them differently she once thought to be her close friends. “I grow up with a lot of these people. They were my close friends. They used to smile with me every day. I never would have thought this could happen. They really showing me,” she said of the treatment she has received from her “friends.”
She has four children, three of whom she adopted from her sister. The eldest is the niece who was placed in quarantine. She said worries for them all but especially her children who will be returning to school. “This not going to end,” she lamented. “I see the hurt in their faces when their friends make fun of them and say certain things…,” she added while voicing her fears that they will be bullied when they return to school. “You know how children are. Even if the school accepts the negative test results, these children will not take it for that. They will continue saying all kind of things,” she pointed out. “These children are young, they see what is happening and I know it hurts them. I could see it when they see their friends making certain gestures. When my children go outside during the day and people see them, they start saying all kinds of things.”
The woman said that her “sad reality” is that her neighbours also go out of their way to advise people who aren’t from the area not to speak to them and while some persons who are more knowledgeable would ignore the advice, she still feels deep hurt and betrayal whenever these things are said. “They behaving like they could get the disease just from talking to me. But I have been saying this and I’ve said it loud for them to hear. ‘This disease ain’t come from cats and dogs, it come for human beings and I hope they can handle it should the table turn,’” she added.
