Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter
Paulina Robertson and three of her children (from left) Jovaughn Simpson, Gabriella and Shanice Morgan at the Yallahs Primary School yesterday. Ms. Robertson and her children are the only persons still being housed at the shelter. - RICARDO MAKYN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
PAULINA ROBERTSON, a single mother of 10 children, has been dealt many blows in life.
Last Wednesday evening was perhaps the worst tragedy she ever faced when Hurricane Dennis destroyed her home and her small shop. The shop was her only means of livelihood.
Surrounded by her three youngest children, ages one to nine years old, she told her tragic story from one of the classrooms of the Yallahs Primary School in St. Thomas where they remain the only occupants left of the 50 who sought shelter there.
"Because me is a single parent, me have a little shop where me sell little things. The first thing me see the water hit the shop, the water just come in and then me see a piece a wall just come and lick the house," she said with a faraway look in her eyes.
The board structure she lived in was washed away by Dennis' raging flood waters.
"Me have a dresser, when me do find it, the feet dem bruck off, not even the utensils them me could a find, it just took everything," she said shaking her head. "Me have fi go start all over again. A me alone live, a nuh seh me have any of the fathers helping me."
A NEW SLATE
But what is painful for this single mother is that she had decided to start a new slate when her last relationship with her youngest children's father went sour.
"Me just seh me nah go get involve with anybody else and just gwaan through with the little business," her voice now cracking.
Now she is facing a future with her children with no source of income.
Paulina said this was the first time she had experienced such as disaster. "I have been living there from I was nine (she is now 36 years)."
She is in need of food, diapers, clothing, soap and assistance to get her back on her feet.
