Flood Leaves Family of Four Homeless
A family of four was among the many left homeless as a result of the flooding over the weekend. The head of the family is a single mother of three school-aged children who says her house could not withstand the flood waters. The crack of the wooden structure woke her up and she scrambled to save her children. Tonight she is in need of assistance to get back on her feet. News Five’s Duane Moody reports.
Duane Moody, Reporting
This wooden broken down structure here at number one-ninety-six Neal Pen Road Extension was home to twenty-eight year old Kayla Stevens and her three children—ten year old Britney Carr, six year old Shamai Polanco and four year old Amai Stevens. But on Saturday morning the stilts on which it was erected gave way and the house with the family inside collapsed into the waters below. The single mother of three says they lost all their belongings.
Kayla Stevens
Kayla Stevens, Homeowner
“Early Saturday morning, me and my three kids were inside sleeping and I heard the board start crack and then the house drop. I never know the outside was already flood. So my four year old baby, I grab she first and when I grab she and open the door, we drop right into water to my belly. I scream before my baby coulda mi scream. And I had to swim with my baby in my hand and try knock on the front house fi try make dehn mi let me in. This was about two-thirty, minutes to three the morning. So I put my baby in first and then I come back for the next two who were still inside. So I noh really know weh happen to the house because dah mi night. When I get up the next morning and come check on the house, this dah weh I come to. Everything get destroyed in my house; mi refridge, mi TV, mi kids dehn stuff…everything.”
The house, or at least what is left of it, is located in the Collet Division, which was severely affected by the epic floods over the weekend. Up to eighty-five percent of that constituency was under water and on Sunday, Collet Area Rep, Patrick Faber, says that those affected are to come forward.
Patrick Faber
Patrick Faber, Area Rep., Collet
“My team of people working along with CEMO and NEMO will be assessing. What I’ve done this morning is ask people to start taking photographs of the water so that it would help us if they can bring it into the office over the next couple of days for us to properly assess the damage.”
Stevens says she needs some assistance, even if in kind, because her children have not been able to go to school since all their school supplies and uniforms were destroyed.
Kayla Stevens
“I noh di get no kinda help. The only person help me right now dah Travelers. The minister, nobody noh come. Dehn noh send nothing. I noh di ask fi no money. I just want groceries because mi baby dehn have to eat; I need clothing fi them and I really need wah house. I am a single mother with three kids. dah only me and my three daughter. So I jstu the ask to please help me, please assist me. This dah noh no politics. Yo noh even need fi give me no money; just buy the stuff dehn, give it to me. If yo could see, all the clothes, everything get destroyed. The only things I coulda mi save dah the clothes on my back and mi kids dehn cause I try save mi babies dehn first. When it rains, the water come in, the house dah like wah shower. But from since ih drop yesterday, dah no longer shower; dah the rain. I goen fi help already and nothing, nothing came out of it.”
Duane Moody for News Five.
Anyone who would like to assist can contact Stevens at 622-7670 or her mother at 624-4001.
Dear kayla, I sympathize with your predicament. I have 3 questions Whe di baby pupa deh? You ever think about birth control? Will you marry me? I will tek care of you and yu pickni dem. I have money.
This story, as tragic as it is, screams out to the greater tragedy of Belizean society. Our country is rife with uneducated, unemployable single mothers who bring into this world children who are unwilling product of lust and roving men who move on from woman to woman like lions in the wild. Consider this poor woman living in a shed with three children under five with different fathers. She is begging for assistance for herself and her children. No where in this story does she mention the responsibility of the father of her children. The tragedy of our Belizean women is repeated thousands of time, a legacy of our slave history, and the young women continue as best as they can to proceed with their lives. The men drop their seed and affection for a short period in the mating season like dogs, and the women bare the responsibility of raring these fatherless kids into the reality and circumstances that they did not sign up for. It has to stop. It must. I argue that the women should close their legs. Others argue that the men should bare the responsibility of their children. Others propose birth control, condoms. But nature prevails exacerbated by Belizean culture that its OK to have children like bitches;then beg the minister and government for help, shelter food and clothing and people like myself who were not even present when they got laid. Sadly, the saturation of fundamental Christianity has not prevented one iota the promiscuity of illicit cohabitation in our county. Our battle now is focused on men marrying men instead of fundamental family values. Go figure.