‘Mi nuh have it’

For a year, her voice has been the steady authority at the gates of Petersfield High School in Westmoreland, shouldering the job of keeping hundreds of students safe behind the institution’s walls.

But, as the parish continues to grapple with the devastation left by Hurricane Melissa – the Category 5 storm that battered western and parts of central Jamaica last October – Joan Forbes Scarlett, the school’s security guard, finds herself in a personal crisis.

She is unable to shield her own family from an unfolding disaster.

Forbes Scarlett, a mother of six, was left homeless after the storm tore off her roof and flattened the one-bedroom board house in Hertford, where she, her two youngest children, and spouse lived.

They are now squatting in an abandoned building in conditions that defy basic human dignity.

Within those walls, there is no electricity or running water. A makeshift door and window were installed to ensure some security.

On the floor, a tarpaulin separates the dirt and two mattresses on which the family sleeps.

Immediate challenges

When it rains, water seeps through the unrendered walls and window, flooding the structure.

Forbes Scarlett told The Sunday Gleaner that those immediate challenges occupy her mind daily.

As a result, back-to-school preparation, even as the Christmas school term draws near, has not been a priority.

“Right now, I don’t build back nothing. Me nuh have no help. Me nuh get no help from nobody – no government, nobody. My house is flat; just the empty spot there right now. The four a we inna one abandoned building inna one room. Roach, frog. When rain fall, in there flood out – flood right out. Me bed wet up,” she explained, sitting inside the school’s guardhouse.

Oblivious to her worries, her five-year-old son sat behind her, passing the time playing a game on her cell phone.

Metres from them, his 12-year-old brother stood atop a building, observing men at work repairing the roof of another structure on the compound damaged by the hurricane.

He is to begin classes in two weeks at the school.

“Right now, me unhappy; me just a put the best outside. Right now, a back to school and me two sons fi a get ready, but me nuh know how that a go work out,” Forbes Scarlett said.

“Nothing I can’t buy. Sometimes me sit down and I cry and me son who a five will say to me, ‘Mommy, what happen to you?’ me say, ‘Nothing’ because me can’t pass off that stress on him,” the security guard said.

She said the impact of the storm has traumatised the boys, who, she recalled, cried profusely during its passage. They had sought shelter with family in Green Island in the neighbouring parish of Hanover.

“It rough. Me a go through it. All me coming work me going through it. Pain, tears ... . So we in the abandoned building now. Right now, me depressed, especially when me see me can’t get no help. Nothing at all. It nuh make nuh sense,” the woman said, her voice trailing off.

Forbes Scarlett said months ago, she sought assistance at the office of the National Insurance Scheme (NIS), where her name was recorded. She said she was told that an officer would visit her at the abandoned building to assess her situation but that has not happened.

NIS is a social security programme run through the Ministry of Labour and Social Security. The ministry is responsible for leading the damage assessment process, shelter management, and the coordination of welfare activities following the passage of a hurricane.

Based on the assessment, the ministry is also responsible for preparing a budget for payment of grants to victims. The budget is submitted to the Ministry of Finance and Public Service for approval and the disbursement of funds.

On a second visit to the office in June, Forbes Scarlett said she was told that her case was being processed. However, the woman said, this yielded nothing.

She returned to the office a third time in July, she said, and was told they had no file on record or case opened for her.

“September morning? It nuh look good because me sure know say them not going to come to school because dem nuh have uniform, dem nuh have bag, dem nuh have shoes, and school fee fi pay. Dem not going to come because, what? I don’t have it. I just don’t have it,” the woman said.

kimone.francis@gleanerjm.com