At 40, Zabita (only name given) craves a new beginning in life though it seems that the odds are against her.
As if being functionally illiterate, unemployed and homeless were not enough, Zabita also has to deal with the stigma of being a ‘jail bird’ and is a recovering drug addict.
No family support and not hearing from or seeing the three sons she brought into this world for a number of years must also be piled onto the list of unfortunate circumstances this woman must deal with if she is to make a new start in life.
But all may not be lost, Zabita, with the help of others, has taken the first step on the right path and is a resident of the Phoenix Recovery Project. For the first time, she is getting some professional help for her years of cocaine addiction.
It might be easy to judge Zabita and accuse her of making the wrong choices in life but her life story reveals that she was never really given a chance to make it in life. That she has made it this far is testimony to the fact that she longs to live a better life.
Left motherless at one year old and later abandoned by a father, who chose to ignore the abuse meted out to his three children by their stepmother, Zabita and her two siblings were later rescued by an aunt.
The aunt was dealing with her own issues at the time, but she collected the three children, who were still very young, and later took them to Suriname where she lived.
By the time Zabita was 13, her older sister had decided that life would be better with a boyfriend and had returned to Guyana.
As she told her life story to Stabroek News in a small room at Phoenix’s Mon Repos location, the pain was evident long before her tears started to flow.
But her desire to make her life better shone through even as she stared at the many scars on her skin, signs of a recent abusive relationship.
“I really want to make my life better. I don’t want to go back to the way I use to live…When I think about all dem things that happen to me and what I use to do to get money to buy cocaine I does shame. I want change,” Zabita said as the tears flowed freely.
At 13 Zabita began to work in Suriname after her aunt fell ill, two years later she was pregnant with her first child and homeless. Her aunt, by that time, had returned to Guyana with her brother and when the father of her child showed no interest in her well-being she was also forced to return home.
Addiction
Home was in Linden and it was there that Zabita first started using marijuana before graduating to cocaine; introduced to her by a lover. She did not say it but a couple of things might have fuelled her addiction at that young age. Her brother, seemingly fed up with his life, ended it with poison and she took to “jumping ship” to support her child and aunt. Zabita said she made “good money” selling her body to sailors aboard vessels that docked in Linden during those years and she managed to support her son.
Her ship life ended when she met a Venezuelan national who worked in Kwakwani and they struck up a relationship.
However, she couldn’t give up her cocaine addiction so she hid it from her partner even after she got pregnant with her second child. At that time life seemed to be going pretty well for Zabita. She was able to own her own home which was occupied by her aunt and sister, who by then had returned with two children. Eventually she moved to Venezuela with her partner and their son and later she sent for her first born to join them in the Spanish-speaking neighbouring country. While there she gave birth to her third son and according to her, during the more than six years she spent in Venezuela she never used cocaine but smoked cigarettes.
She managed to keep her life together in Venezuela and as she puts it “things was good. When I think about how I use to live over there with me children and so on I does cry.”
When her aunt became gravely ill, her sister impressed upon her to return. Six years ago she left the comfort zone of Venezuela and returned to Guyana for a visit and today she is still here.
When she first tried to go back, there were some difficulties presented by the Venezuelan authorities and while she waited on her reputed husband to sort the matter out she was again sucked into using cocaine after reuniting with her old pals. The money her partner sent to her for her upkeep and to assist with her return to Venezuela went up in cocaine smoke.
“I start using till after a time I stop thinking about going back and just focus on the cocaine,” Zabita admitted.
Her sister later contacted her husband and told him about the addiction and the money dried up but that did not stop Zabita who then sold the items in her home. Her addiction resulted in both her aunt and sister leaving the house but by then she cared no longer; once she got cocaine to remain high, life seemed quite okay.
Squandering $2.5M
After everything in her house was sold, Zabita said she started stealing and this resulted in her first encounter with the police and later her incarceration. She subsequently sold her house for $2.5 million and declared that “the only good thing I can remember doing with the money is bury mommy (her aunt).”
She also recalled giving her supplier $100,000 to help fix the windows of his home and she was later allowed to stay in a room for free once she paid for her drugs.
But before moving into the room she had shared a relationship with a man, also a user, who from time to time would beat her mercilessly. She pointed to the marks on her hands, face and neck which she had sustained during the beatings.
For her, a beating which saw her being lashed in the head with a brick might have had the most severe effect on her since she now forgets simple things.
Her ex-partner met a violent end when he was fatally stabbed while serving time in prison. But he is not the only one who left Zabita with physical scars.
She lost all of her front teeth when she was hit in the face with a piece of wood during an argument with a relative of her supplier.
During one of her many periods of imprisonment she met two persons from the recovery project and while her stay at the location should have begun more than a year ago she had initially opted out.
She was back in prison, this time for being caught with smoking utensils, when she met the counsellors once again.
She has been at Phoenix for one month and it has been a struggle as there is still that longing to be outside even though she swears she would not go back to her old friends. In fact following a problem with one of the inmates she was prepared to leave but was later persuaded to remain.
Head of the recovery project Clarence Younge admits that it will be a very difficult process for Zabita and like all others there is no guarantee of her becoming a success story. Zabita, he said, is in an even more difficult position because she has no support base when she leaves the project. While she is hoping to get herself a job and a cousin has promised to allow her to stay at a room in Georgetown, Younge said with her addiction and criminal record many persons would not want to give her that second chance.
He said it is always difficult when dealing with persons who are addicted to drugs and while the programme is geared for six months, it is impossible for persons to just drop their addiction in that short period when it had been with them sometimes for more years than they might wish to recall.
Meanwhile, he revealed that a young man Stabroek News had interviewed earlier, who had given his name as Harry, has walked out of the programme. Harry, who has been addicted to alcohol for most of his life, had told Stabroek News that he wanted to have a chance to start over.
But in the end Harry walked out and Younge said he firmly believes he is back to his addiction. He said Harry had called him on two occasions and made arrangements for them to meet but never kept the appointments.
As for Zabita she hopes to make contact with her children, now aged 20, 16 and 14, and to develop a relationship with them.
“It is sad that my children must be done forget me and how I use to live with them and take care of them and now look what happen,” she said. Her eldest son had grown to see her Venezuelan partner as his father and he has not returned to Guyana since.
Right now her first hurdle is ensuring that she remains in the programme for at least the required six months then maybe her cousin would give her the empty room.
Phoenix Recovery Project – the only organization that offers services to both men and women – is located at Lot 90 Block ‘CC’ Mon Repos, East Coast Demerara. Its telephone number is 220-6825.
