Albert Burnett Jnr, 41, the seventh of nine siblings, was born two and a half years before his younger brother Jermain, 38, who is paralysed from his waist down and has limited mobility from the waist up. He has always seen himself as Jermain’s protector since their mother died when Jermain was four years old and he was six.
“As a child myself, I realised Jermain was creeping at three or four when a child that age should’ve been walking,” he recalled. At the time the family was living at Saxacalli in the Essequibo River. “Living at Saxacalli was the happiest days of my life. After we moved, it was a rough and tough journey to where we are today. That Jermain survived with God’s grace is a blessing,” Albert told Stabroek Weekend recently.
Albert made it clear from the start of the interview that he was not complaining but simply relating a life story of survival and eking out a living, even though his father was a fairly wealthy man.