Home alone children hardly have any food
Stabroek News
June 21, 2004
The five children who were left nearly a month ago by their parents remained fending for themselves yesterday unsure of when their situation would change.
The parents are said to be in Linden looking for work with four of their other children including a seven-month-old.
The frail-looking children whose plight was highlighted in yesterday's edition of the Sunday Stabroek said they did not have enough to eat and hardly had clothes. When Stabroek News revisited them yesterday they were paddling their small boat in the Demerara River checking for catch in a dilapidated fishing net.
"We nah get nothing more than these two fishes and a little rice to eat and we ain't get enough house cloth," Suresh Ramdeen, one of the five siblings said while disembarking their boat.
Asked if anyone had visited them, the boys in unison said a loud no.
"Nobody ain't come hay only y'all", Suresh said, while his siblings huddled close to each other. Life for Suresh, Anand, Ravendra, Rajesh and their 8-year-old sister Remano Ramdeen is far from satisfactory but they seem content in each other's company.
"I don't have problem with them, only when is time to go to school I have to quarrel on them," 13-year-old Suresh said, admitting that he now has to take on the role of his parents. Asked if their parents usually leave them on their own, Suresh said yes, explaining that they are very poor and that apart from the five of them his parents have four other children all of whom are below the age of six.
Stabroek News was told that the children's father, Rohan is employed at Guysuco's Wales Estate as a cane cutter.
However because it is the out-of-crop season he had travelled to Linden seeking another job. Only some of Guysuco's cane cutters are given out-of-crop work. According to reports, while he was away, Guysuco sent Rohan some correspondence and his wife, Gita took the letter and went in search of him in Linden. Since leaving some three weeks ago neither Gita nor Rohan has returned to their home.
"All we have is a little rice in a bucket, about a cup of sugar, no milk, no flour, no oil, no soap and nothing else," Suresh, who was taken out of school because of the family's circumstances, said.
He told this newspaper that they did not prepare breakfast and would cook once per day. According to Suresh usually they would depend on a catch in the river to decide on their meal.
"If we catch a two fish we would boil it with rice and if we get thing to make stew we would eat."
He said however that neighbours would sometimes assist them with a little salt, sugar and other items but on a regular basis they had to seek their own bread.
The children agreed that their parents were usually absent from the home.
The family has been living at the riverside for about three years now in a small zinc shack.
They have two beds with bedding that looked neglected. Suresh said he would usually clean the house but these days he has been so busy finding food to eat that there was little time to do household chores apart from cooking.
The children said too that they had no footwear apart from two slippers which they use among themselves. The ones who attend school do not report for classes regularly. Today the boys will not be attending school since their uniforms have not been washed.
Asked how did they spent a normal day at home since their parents vanished, Suresh said that they wake up in the morning, scrape the pot for whatever food remained from overnight and head to the river with the boat. After that they would return home around 10 am, prepare their lunch, eat and then head back to the river.
Around 5 pm the children would return home have a bath and a changing of clothing if there are any clean clothes and retire to bed.
"We don't have no radio, no TV and there is no game in this house, sometimes we play catcher and that's all," Suresh said on behalf of his siblings. (Nigel Williams)