Amitabh Sharma, Features Coordinator

Syreeta Broomfield

Syreeta Broomfield stands proud wearing her United States Coastguard uniform. A star basketball player and mariner, this six-foot woman of Jamaican origin dribbles between her job and the game she loves.

Her life story doesn't read as a fairy tale. For an inner-city teenager, life was a constant battle at every step. From the nightmare of getting crushed under the sinking roof that was ready to crumble at the whiff of a breeze, to her struggles of getting a meal.

"From what I can remember, my mom and I lived in a room that we rented from someone ... . We then moved in with my aunt when the landlord's wife thought it was time for us to move out. There, we still lived in one room," Syreeta said.

Syreeta had odds against her. Born and raised in a depressed neighbourhood of Southborough, Portmore, she got pregnant as a teenager. Chided by her family, she dared to dream.

She said: "I got pregnant when I was 18. I saw how life was for my mom and I didn't want to live like that."

With her love for basketball, Syreeta found the strength to go on. She was determined and her pregnancy would not be a deterrent.

Pregnant but still playing

"I played for the senior national team (in Jamaica) till I was five months pregnant and no one knew of this, she revealed. "I had to make it to the team."

After her son, Anieph, was born, Syreeta took a hard look at where her life was headed. She had seen her mother struggle to make ends meet, finding herself in similar circumstances, and wanted generational change.

"I wanted something better," she said.

She decided to go to the United States to pursue her dreams, leaving her two-year-oldbehind. Soon aloneness and the strange, new environment started to take toll on Syreeta.

Said she: "I use to cry because I missed home, and I would go to bed hungry because I didn't have the money to buy food."

Unable to adjust, she almost got kicked out in her first year. "But there must have been someone praying for me 'cause somehow I got a second chance," Syreeta said.

Determined to get her life back on track, she graduated from Tallahassee Community College and also secured a scholarship at Michigan State University.

"I got my second chance, I ran with it. I graduated and my mother got to see the snow," she exclaimed.

Help from friends

Syreeta coached Tallahassee Community College basketball team and then Eastern Kentucky University. She quit the job to join the US Coastguard.

Syreeta learnt the hard way.

"I was told by my own family that I wouldn't become anything in life because I got pregnant early," she said, but she forgives them. "I wish I could say names of some people that treated me wrong, but I proved them wrong."

These experiences, she said, have made her a stronger person but at the same time made her choosy.

"People look at you differently and they talk trash about you. I only have a few people that I can truly say are my friends," said Syreeta.

Worth the effort

She is looking forward to enter the officer programme, get a promotion and get her son to migrate by year end.

In retrospect, the pain was worth the effort.

"The fact that I was determined and I got over what people had to say about my choices in life. I didn't want to be seen as a failure to my son, family or anyone."

Syreeta firmly believes that if she could follow her dreams, any young Jamaican can. All it takes is a dose of determination.

"If you fail in the first instance, you can always get up and brush yourself off and try again," she said.

amitabh.sharma@gleanerjm.com