Women’s Chronicles

A true stalwart of human rights died on May 31. Her name was simply Andaiye.

At 34 years old Michelle (not her real name) is a broken woman and she believes that the ‘system’ which should have helped her has failed her miserably.

“I feel empty, lost, angry, but I have hope,” Natasha Ann Lesprance said, close to tears that never came.

“I was going through depression. It was years of depression. I would just sit there and stare, don’t do nothing.

“I don’t know what Mother’s Day would be like for me this year because it is hard to see my daughter actually like fighting for her life.

“Girl right now I so stressed and I not sure what to do,” she said to me, her facial expression exhibiting just how stressed she was.

“University of Guyana (had a guy on a motorcycle follow me at night from all the way… [from]  by Bursary to the parking lot shining a light on my ass and commenting on the things he’d do if he had access to my ass), had cases of walking on the road and had guys following me for almost my entire journey.

“I was so angry I had to stop, turn back and address that man.

“She was a loving, kind and caring person, she was everything a mother could ask for,” Tejwattie Jinkoo better known as Sharda said as she described her dead daughter, 21-year-old Omwattie Gill known as Anjalie.

“I help out because there comes a time when we all need help and I am just doing my part even though I must tell you it is very hard, but I try,” she said almost breathlessly.

“We women can be our own biggest enemies,” she said. I nodded vigorously in agreement and added my two cents, stopping her thought process briefly.

“Everybody know me as the bush woman because is years now I does sell bush, you know, and I does look after people.

“I felt horrible. I felt traumatised. And worse of all I felt like a criminal.

“That environment is not for me and I just had to pack up and leave.

“I just want to tell my story because I went through a lot abuse, but now I get out and I happy.

“I use to think that when the day come I would feel so free and happy that it was over.

“Where were you last night? Where were you last night? You want knock me, you knock me,” the woman saying this was speaking to a man; she had grabbed his collar and was tugging and hitting him as she fired off the questions.

“Imagine I go to do a test for cervical cancer. I done frighten and shaky and to hear she talking about how she never hear about pap smear and she don’t know is what and all them things… I think what really wrong with these people,” she said.

“I am so scared, but I know I have to find out what is wrong.

It was the end of the working day and I was leaving the office when I saw her; she gave me a wave with a bright smile.