‘God is good and we still have life’

An open cellar beneath the ruins of her house is where Juliet Clarke now lives with her three-year-old granddaughter and a mentally-disabled man she cares for, but that has not shaken her faith.

The cellar is all that is left of her house, perched on a slope in the “forgotten” community of Ipswich, located in the northern hills of St Elizabeth, which was battered by Hurricane Melissa a week ago.

It is supported by two large columns several feet apart to the front, with two pieces of tarpaulin draped around it to keep out the elements.

Inside the small space is a mattress they all share, three blue barrels, suitcases, several items of clothing strewn all over and a pair of slippers.

Amid the rubble on the outside were a dresser, a washing machine, a stove, a television, and a speaker box.

The zinc roof for her house, which remained largely intact, was on the ground, metres away.

“A lose everything inna me life … but God is good and we still have life,” Clarke, 62, told The Gleaner yesterday.

In nearby Elderslie district, Shavell Wright’s 83-year-old grandmother, who is diabetic and confined to a bed, was in urgent need of her medication last Wednesday.

With no functional healthcare facility in sight, Wright sprang into action. She asked a friend to purchase the medications in Kingston then had them transported to Mandeville by a public-transport operator.

“I had to go to Mandeville to collect it from a bus man because di bus man dem nah pass Mandeville because dem don’t know how the road stay,” Wright said.

“There are more sick persons here. We need help with medication, food, and water. We a run out a water fi drink,” she added.

The hilly terrain across Ipswich, Elderslie, and Mulgrave districts were dotted with homes and other buildings that were completely or partially destroyed, including schools and a clinic, as well as downed light posts, electrical wires, and trees.

However, Clarke, Wright and other residents believe their plight has gone unnoticed, charging that no relief supplies had been distributed across any of the communities, leaving them to fend for themselves.

They said that instead, much of the focus is on residents in the major town centres, particularly in Santa Cruz.

“I don’t know why, but most of the houses up here are board houses, but in the town areas they are concrete. The people dem up here so dem poorer dan the ones dem down there so,” she said.

“There is nobody to advocate for us whether PNP or JLP,” added Wright, making reference to the two main political parties, the People’s National Party and the governing Jamaica Labour Party.

It was a stark contrast to the recent election campaign, one man asserted.

“You see if election call a mawnin you see dem come roun’ yah, but you see after dat …,” he said without completing his thought.

“Yah so a di last part a di world fi we. Fi food and sup’n reach ‘round yah, we haffi dead before it reach yah so or it a done up the road before it reach yah so.”

Clinton Samuels, councillor for the Ipswich Division in the St Elizabeth Municipal Corporation, said he had been assured by the mayor of Black River that relief supplies would be “heavily” distributed to the respective communities this week.

Samuels blamed the delays on the closure of the airports during the passage of the Category 5 hurricane, which made landfall in Jamaica last Tuesday.

He acknowledged that there was no clear timeline when residents could expect distribution of relief supplies but said that “as long as they get them to me, even if is night, I will get it to them”.

Food and building materials are among the more urgent requests, he disclosed during an interview in Mulgrave district yesterday.

“People will get frustrated and say a lot of things … but I will speak to the mayor again to find out when we will get our supplies,” he said, acknowledging the growing impatience among residents.

However, that was of little comfort to Clarke, who said she had no idea how she would rebuild her life after a frightening near-death experience during the hurricane.

The 62-year-old woman recounted that after watching a section of the roof being ripped from the house, she tried desperately to move some furniture into another room.

But as the situation worsened, she opted instead to move her granddaughter and the mentally-disabled man under a bed, where they remained for hours until the storm passed.

Clarke said that since the passage of the hurricane, she survived through the kindness of family members and residents.

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com