“Things not nice, I could just cry, but that wouldn’t help”

Nella Jaundoo is a mother to eight children and for years, she has been working hard to ensure that they are taken care of. She struggles to put food on the table and ensure that the roof over their heads is enough to provide shelter in trying times.

The single mother, who lives at Number 53 Village, Corentyne, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne), works as a sweeper/cleaner at the 52/74 Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC).

The 45-year-old mother told the Sunday Times Magazine that she earns a measly $15,000 per month for her work at the NDC since it is just for two hours per week. In addition, she rears animals – pigs, goats, sheep and poultry – and does other odd jobs to get by and ensure that her family is taken care of.
Making brooms from coconut branches to sell

“Well, my brother, things not nice. Me get eight children and four with me right now and two grandchildren because their mother not working. Things not nice at all. It’s not nice,” the woman said.

Jaundoo also makes brooms using coconut branches just to earn extra money but as of late, she is finding it very hard to manage.

“Every time I try to raise, something happens,” she said in a frustrating tone.

Struggles have always formed part of Jaundoo’s life and she explained that she has had to work ten times harder for everything she’s acquired thus far. The mother used insecticide containers, obtained from the NDC, as “piggy banks” in which she saved to purchase animals. She added that both she and the family were deprived of many of the things they needed as she paid most of her attention to the piggy bank.

Between January and June of this year, she was able to save $60,000 in her piggy bank. She used that money to invest in the poultry business.

“I take the money and went to Port Mourant Market and by fowls,” she noted.

She had invested her savings and bought thirty-five fowls and twenty-four ducks. Now six ducks and nine fowls remain following a flood due to rainfall earlier this month.
Jaundoo cleaning the veranda the sheep now occupies

“I had some of the hens sitting and when the flood came all eggs were floating. Now it is only a couple hens left,” she said with tears in her eyes.

Jaundoo also lost pigs she had been rearing for the past year along with sheep and goats in the flood. Of her twelve goats, two survived the flood. The visibly distraught woman related that the sheep survived only because she has been keeping them in her verandah.

“Right now, I have to go and wash the veranda. I had to put them there to save them. And in the morning, I can loose them and tie them on the street. The ducks they stayed just so and die after the flood. Some died before, but since the flood, just like that they flatter and fall down dead. It is only left for me to cry, but that wouldn’t help,” Jaundoo comforted herself by saying.

“When ah go to buy the goat I say ‘wah, so much money bai’ and I buy them one by one. The sheep I buy two by two. The goat is $25,000 for one and the sheep was lil bit more,” she added.

To further compound her loss, the mother related that all her goats that died in the flood were pregnant which would have significantly increased her stock as well as financial value.

Jaundoo is currently taking care of four of her children aged 18, 17, 14 and 12. This is in addition to two of her grandchildren whose mother is unemployed but not living with the Jaundoo. The mother of eight said on several occasions she went to the Social Protection Ministry seeking public assistance but was told she is young and strong and should go and look for a job.
Some of the fowls that survived

She is trying very hard to get a job but they are hard to come by. In the meanwhile, she is hoping that the dawn of a new year comes soon, as she continues to count her losses while trying to pick the pieces up and rebuild.