Homeless for the holidays
Stabroek News
December 25, 2002
While many of us will be feasting on bread and pepperpot this morning as a prelude to a day of feasting and festivity, other less fortunate persons will have no roof over their head, no Christmas dinner to eat and no presents to open.
Stabroek News yesterday spoke with a few of these people whose home is the pavement of Bourda Market.
Dennis McDonald, a deportee from Canada, told this newspaper that every year Christmas brings back sad memories of that day when his father was gunned down by an unknown assailant in Canada. “That is the reason for I being here. My daddy got shot and I went looking for the man who killed him and my life took a wrong turn.” Yesterday he was sitting on a plank in a passageway of Bourda market, a place where he has been since January 14 when he was deported back to his homeland.
Asked how he copes with life on the street, the 35-year-old who admitted to being a drug addict said, “life is rough out here, rude boy, there is no wuk, nothing to eat, but I have to survive.”
He said he survives mainly on assistance from citizens who traverse the streets everyday.
McDonald remembered that on December 18, 1999, his father was murdered in Canada and taking matters in his own hands he went after the killer and turned out abusing drugs and committing other criminal acts. For him Christmas is a bad time. “My father was buried on Christmas Eve day and I had no Christmas since then.”
However, he is looking forward to having a quiet day today and is hoping that kind-hearted citizens will pass by to render him some sort of assistance.
“Life is very dread my son,” said 49-year-old John who has been living on the street for almost his entire life. He repairs umbrellas at the eastern end of Bourda market and said that ever since his father’s death a few years ago he was forced from the family home to a life on the street.
While he does not earn much from the few umbrellas he would normally repair, John declared that he does not like to beg.
“I prefer people give me things and if I don’t get, I will try to work.”
When asked what are his plans for Christmas Day, John said “I am basically trying to survive and any plan whatsoever today would be to stay alive and survive.”
He, too, is hoping that some kind citizen will pass by today to give him something to eat and drink.
51-year-old Hassan Ally said he left home in Lusignan two years ago after family problems became unbearable. Ally is a father of three and a weeder, working around the Bourda Market area. He said apart from weeding he would beg every Friday and would normally ask for help from citizens. Ally, his mother Chandroutie and his mother’s reputed husband Delram Singh are all occupying a section on the eastern end of the Bourda Market corridor.
Singh told this newspaper that he had been a resident of Charlotte Street, but his house went up in flames two years ago and since then he has been living at the Palms and on the street. He said that he was an official resident of the Palms, but for the sake of communicating with Chandroutie he would usually abandon the institution for a few days every now and then. He said he would spend his Christmas with Chandroutie, but would be returning to the Palms on Boxing Day.
The trio has no plans for today, but if nothing else they are all hoping to get something to eat and drink and if possible a few dollars in their hands.
