I want to live
By KEINO SWAMBER
 POLLY RAMSARAN-GOPIE holds her baby daughter Anjanie outside their home at Bunsee Ttace, Penal. Photo: TREVOR HACKETT
"I AM feeling like if I am now starting to live!" These were the words of 33-year-old Polly Ramsaran-Gopie whose plight was featured on Page One of yesterday's Express. Gopie, who lives at Bunsee Trace, Penal, made a heart-rending plea for a place she and her five children could call home. The desperate mother had threatened to kill her children and commit suicide if she could not provide a decent standard of living for her young ones. Gopie's husband, Dennis Gopie, was sentenced last November to serve an 18-month prison term for fraud, leaving her to fend for herself, Tasha, 15, Risha, 13, Marisha, 12, Kishan, 5 and Anjanie, seven months. The will to live, expressed by Gopie when contacted yesterday, came in response to the outpouring of love she received from individuals and groups who responded to her plight. Numerous callers to the Express made offers of foodstuff, clothing and promised to look into ways in which they could help the Gopies find a roof over their heads. According to Gopie: "Before today, I felt like a living dead but now I realise that life is worth living after all. "I could not go on depending on people to help me and my children every day and I just gave up," Gopie cried. She told the Express that Tasha, a pupil of the Penal Junior Secondary School, has been deeply touched by the show of human kindness to them. Tasha told her mother that she wanted to become a social worker to help other people in distress. "She tell me that she gone through so much problems already and is keeping a copy of the story to show her children how she suffer," said Gopie. "Tasha used to feel ashamed about being poor and never wanted the children in school to know because she thought they would laugh at how poor she is but now she just want to study hard and pass exams to help other people." Gopie, responding to offers to adopt baby Anjanie, was adamant about keeping her family together. "That is totally out of the question," she said firmly. "No one is going to separate me from my children. I love my children so much that I can't do without them. I never left my children alone and I am not going to do it now." 
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