Social worker Poshia Bryan was plunged into heartbreak and hardship in 1998 when her then husband migrated leaving her to fend for herself and six children between the ages of 4 and 15 years old and reportedly marrying someone else before they divorced. However, she managed to vanquish that adversity and emerge triumphant.
“Breaking up, rebuilding life with six children, including four boys, and studying to uplift the family was no easy feat. I’m long over all of that but you asked. There were times I went to bed not knowing how I was going to feed them. There was never ever once the temptation to look for a man to help me. I say God did it, not me. I overcame the odds. Sometimes I am amazed. When one of my sons had to write the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate exams, I sold my washing machine to get money to pay for the exams,” she told Stabroek Weekend.
Now a senior probation and social services officer in the Child Care Protection Agency, Ministry of Human Services, Bryan retired and was rehired by the agency where she has worked since 2010.
“I love to help people and my job gives me that scope. From time to time I do some part-time work with the University of Guyana (UG) as coordinator for the master’s degree practicum. I get involved in conducting research and so on,” said the holder of bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social work from UG.
Bryan grew up in a single-parent home with four other siblings and her mother.
“Many times she left us at home alone to find house work and other menial tasks to earn money to feed us. Many times we moved from place to place and stayed at people’s homes. Some people did not treat us well and as a little child I was determined not to stay in poverty,” she recalled.
An active child, she was a member of the National Cadet Corps of the Guyana National Service, did karate, played table tennis and was a sprinter.
She attended Bedford Methodist in Bourda and Houston Community High School (HCHS), now Houston Secondary where she passed seven subjects at the College of Preceptors examinations with distinction.
As a champion athlete, she was popular at school. “The children at school looked up to me. I liked singing and won the Under-14 Mashramani calypso competition in 1978,” she reminisced.
When she was 17 years old, she was chosen from HCHS to take part in the Canada World Youth exchange programme held in Guyana and Ontario and Quebec, Canada. “I felt privileged. It expanded my views about the world,” she said. “I didn’t want to remain in a corner and remain poor.”
She subsequently began working at her alma mater. “In the morning I was a student and in the afternoon I was a pupil teacher still wearing my uniform,” she said.
Her mother was a member of the Seventh Day Adventist church and Bryan attended church with her every Saturday. She left the church in her teens because, “I couldn’t wear pants. I couldn’t wear earrings. I couldn’t eat this. I couldn’t eat that. But the church grounded me in my Christian values. At school I had a teacher, Pastor Joseph Ramdeen, who talked to me if he thought I was getting out of hand. He made me feel like I was wanted. Years later I realised he did this out of love and wanted me to succeed.”
Bryan later taught at New Amsterdam Home Economics Centre, after which she returned to Georgetown and worked at Guyana Stores Limited (GSL) for 20 years, first as a grade B clerk, a grade A clerk and then as a supervisor.
Marrying
At the age of 21, Bryan married her childhood sweetheart, a champion athlete and former student, like herself, of HCHS.
“Me and my ex-husband, then boyfriend, ran and trained together. That was how I got stuck with him. Together we got six children including twins,” she said.
Out of the formal learning setting, Bryan started to study for the General Certificate of Education (GCE) Ordinary Levels examinations. She and her ex-husband studied together. They worked to raise funds and pooled their money. When it was time to pay for the exams, someone had stolen the money. However, they were determined to succeed and continued studying on their own after marrying.
“In the 90s, when I got my third child, I had to stop studying. My ex-husband continued and went on to UG,” she said. “Then things started to get rough. I think he felt I was no longer good for him. In 1998, he said he was going to America to further his studies. He said he would send for us and applied for passports for all the children. He went. For the first few months he communicated with us and helped out. Then he started talking aggressively to me and I suspected he was cheating. I had the six children so I just humbled myself.”
One Sunday, as she was on her way to Tucville Assemblies of God Church, which she had joined, a woman asked her if she had a matter in court because she had seen a copy of an Official Gazette in which her then husband had applied for a divorce. Byran was taken aback.
She did not tell the children anything at that time. She went to court for the hearing on December 19th that year with a lawyer, to challenge what he had placed in the public record.
“His lawyer withdrew his case because it was all lies. According to the case, he told me he was going overseas to study, [and] I moved out of the house… I left him with the children. He said he had no alternative but to leave them with his mother and every time I went to see the children a man was in the car. He tried it a second time and he did not get through because this time around I was notified and his lawyer did not show up,” she revealed.
When Bryan returned home after her ex-husband’s lawyer withdrew his evidence, she told the children what their father had done.
“They cried. My big son who was about 16 years old, and who I thought would have understood, wept uncontrollably. They all wept. It was a terrible time. Years after, I didn’t want to hear about Christmas. Carols triggered my emotions and the pains came back fresh. Six children and no support from their father. Because he didn’t get what he wanted, for many years, he did not talk to us. He sent no money. Nothing,” she recounted.
“Many nights I cried. He was my sweetheart, my first love. I loved him. It was not easy to know he had someone else, other children in the US and another here in Guyana, all while we were married. My marriage wasn’t an easy one. I was torn. I prayed and asked God to heal me emotionally. I don’t feel that pain anymore, but for years it affected me. I never thought I would have overcome that emotional hurt. I tell the children to speak to their father. They do, but they do not have a relationship with him.”
While working at GSL, she hired herself out at weekends and at Christmases to do general cleaning of people’s homes to make ends meet. Then she decided to return to studies.
Studying
Bryan did not think she was university material, but applied to UG and was admitted. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in social work and with distinction. “I was studying,” she said. “My children saw me studying and they too studied harder. I was a role model for them.”
By this time, her eldest son Garfield had become a registered nurse and the others were starting their careers. He could have gone to Cuba to study medicine but she did not have the money to upkeep him. He eventually did medicine at UG. Her second son, Michael, is a registered nurse with a bachelor’s degree in nursing. Her eldest daughter, Latoya, is a registered nurse at the Ministry of Health. Her third son, David, is a manager at Qualfon, has assisted in building a similar system in the Philippines and is also a final-year student at UG. Her last son, Nigel, is a corporal at the Immigration Department of the Guyana Police Force. Her last daughter, Naomi, is at GSL.
Nigel was a former Caribbean table tennis champion. “When my ex-husband saw him being featured in Stabroek News he started to communicate with the children but still no assistance,” she noted.
When the children started working, Bryan returned to UG for a master’s degree in social work.
By this time, her ex-husband’s family members had told her that he had remarried. Once when she was in the US, she asked him for the decree absolute for their divorce, and he claimed he was not married.
“He asked me for a divorce and said after he gets through with his business then he will remarry me. I said, ‘I don’t do that business’,” she said.
Another time when she visited the US she called his number and a woman claiming to be his wife answered. Later, he called her and told her not to call that number because he was not living there. “When I came back home, I went and got a divorce. He married again while still married to me as far as I am concerned,” she said.
When things began to look up and the children were doing well, Bryan said, her ex-husband called and told the children he was proud of them.
“Study, work and ensure the children’s well-being with some still at school, I can tell you, was really, really tough but my faith in Christ pushed me forward. I have some friends – Allison Benn, Sherine Griffith and Aretha Quinn – who are more than family. We became friends at UG in 2007. One year I didn’t have the tuition fee and I was going to drop out,” she recounted. “One of them paid my fee. She knows who she is. If I didn’t have passage [bus fare] or anything to eat, they provided for me in a way not to make me feel bad. They took me shopping at the supermarket. When we had to go out they paid for me. I am forever grateful. They became friends with my children. There is one particular friend who works at the Courts Registry, who bent over backwards to help me. There were times I felt embarrassed because of the way they stepped forward to help me.”
One of the good things that happened was when Bryan’s uncle who lives in England bought a home in Guyana and housed her and her children. “The twins were five years old when we went to live there. It was a nice big house. It was an ease for me from squeezing up in a rented house. The Bible says, when a man cannot look after his household he is worse than an infidel. In the meantime, God provided through my uncle, his late wife, and my friends,” she said.
Work
Bryan investigates matters of child abuse, counsels victims and perpetrators, holds family conferences, conducts parental training and writes up court reports.
“I try to reintegrate children into their families if it is possible, or with other family members. I believe children belong to families and not in a residential home. We had a case where we wanted to reintegrate a child but the home where the mother lived was not safe for the child. They had land and had started to build but could not complete it. I approached our Difficult Circumstances Unit to assist the woman, spoke with people in her church and found construction workers attending her church. We collaborated and the ministry provided the materials. We built the house and the child returned to her mother. We believe in the family,” she explained.
Bryan also counsels free of cost privately because, she said, “I know what I went through. I do it out of a heart of love. I often get good results too.”
Ever active, Bryan plays lawn tennis and table tennis, walks as a form of exercise and gets involved in nature walks with her friends and family members.
“All of my children were athletes at some point in their lives. They are not party animals. It comes from their upbringing. We do enjoy social get together. We love to sing and dance at home. As a family, we celebrate our achievements,” she said.
Now enjoying her life, she said, “I travel in and out of Guyana. Last year my children took me to Lake Mainstay. We went as a family with children, grandchildren and in-laws. I have cousins who look out for me when I am in the US. They know their names.
“It is not where you come from or where you are. It is the determination to press on and get out of those circumstances. I did that.”
She has made new and younger friends who she learns from and exchanges ideas with, noting, “That is how I keep up with young people apart from my children.”
At the church level she does outreaches and goes to the Pomeroon River three times a year.
“I have a real personal relationship with the Lord,” she testified. “I tell people I did not bring up my children, it’s the Lord who did it. I still can’t imagine how I did it. None of the boys were in any trouble. I have eight grandchildren. My eldest grandchild, a STEM student, passed for Queen’s College at National Grade Six Assessment but he attends Anna Regina Multilateral School. I have a grandchild at President’s College. I pray for them.”
Bryan is a lead for the women’s ministry of McDoom Assemblies of God Church and is a deaconess.
