In fewer than five strides, Louisa James can get from her wash area to bedroom to kitchen. Crouching over her bed to fold some clothes while her cat looks on lazily, she tells us it was desperation which led her to make the 20-foot long container her home for the past ten years.
Poverty is only one of the problems Louisa has had to contend with.
“I was in an abusive relationship and the police come and take me and place me in the home for battered women.”
She and her five children spent eight months in the women’s home.
“From the home of battered women, my brother call me and tell me he have a container and I could come and live here,” she explained.
It was hard work over several days but she singlehandedly turned the container into her home.
“I end up clearing it out; it was full of rat and snake and the land was full of bush.”
As rust-riddled as it may be, it houses a metal bunker bed sleeping three, while Iker, the eldest, shares floor space with her mother. Four of the children live with Louisa in the container, whereas one is now living with a relative.
With little ventilation, the confinement is terribly hot but a small TV set and a dusty fan offer meagre creature comforts.
It's the only home her 11-year-old daughter Joanna has known.
“I cook, wash, sleep, eat, rest do everything in here, the only thing is that it leaking real bad…When rain fall it like a rice strainer,” Louisa explained. A glance up would show beams of sunlight piercing through.
A worn green carpet helps to soak up the flood water when it rains.
Louisa had a job with Cepep but she became severely ill, so she had to give up her only source of income. Her medication is not supplied by public health care and pills costing five hundred dollars each are yet another luxury she must do without.
On the day we visited her, Iker had a CXC exam and while other parents may have found themselves up with anxiety, Louisa too was awake but for another reason.
“I hardly sleep last night. Rain start to fall. I hear it falling on the flour bucket; I had to get up and check if the flour waste.”
The flour was saved so it was carrot dumpling as usual for lunch.
For Louisa, when it rains it doesn’t just pour, it floods. She has to shoulder the pain of her children being taunted at school.
Ily, who attends the St Madeline High School a short walk away is the usual target at school.
“They tell me look where you living, you living in a container. It rotten down, you are trailer trash,” he told us.
He tells us he is usually ashamed of his life and often contemplates suicide. “I used to take a knife and slash my skin. I tie rope around my neck. Sometimes I think about jumping off the school building.”
He says his feelings are a blend of anger and sadness, but living on the train line in St Madeline, it’s his dream of a brighter day which gets him by.
“I’m just trying to get a good education and be something in life so I could help my mother.”
A resilient Louisa says she’s not proud of her life but has learnt to play the hand life has dealt so her children can get as much of an equal chance as she can scrape for them.
“I does take a little drop so we could get a little light for the children to do their school work, until the neighbours call T&TEC police,” she said as she pointed to a bulb suspended by small wires from the metal ceiling.
Family celebrations are often not the joyous affairs they are for other families.
“Birthdays does be hard. I does try but I can’t always give them what they want. Look Iker birthday coming up just now and she want a cake from Pricesmart. I tell her I will try, but I don’t know. I hoping,” Louisa said.
Christmas cheer is supplied by church hampers. These have to be carefully rationed so that some stuff can be left over for the New Year.
For the rest of the year, a $500 food card and a public assistance grant of $1,800 are carefully budgeted.
“I does buy rice, flour, sugar, oil, but it have plenty I does leave out. Look, I does hardly buy chicken.”
Louisa tells us she has applied to the State for housing but has not received a favourable response. Ironically, state land is being cleared behind her container to build homes.
“I would be glad to get help. The principal, church, councillor and a lot of people write letter for HDC for me to get a house, but every time you go it’s always photocopy and photocopy and you never get no help.”
Unable to catch a break, Louisa continues to dream big and while her circumstance may be different, hers is the same dream every mother harbours.
“All I want to see is my children get a good education. I want to see Iker go to university because I know she’s bright.”
Urvashi Tiwari-Roopnarine will be reporting on poverty and other critical issues that affect potential voters, and examining the parties’ responses in their manifestos.