ICELYN Henry is a woman wrestling with life.

It’s been almost three years since flood waters from Hurricane Ivan destroyed the small rented house she shared with her common-law husband and seven children in Goldmine, Clarendon, forcing her to flee the district and seek refuge at her ailing mother’s house in the neighbouring Mitchell’s Hill community.

Since then, Henry, her children, mother and a number of other relatives have been jostling for space inside the cramped three-bedroom house, dangerously perched on a steep hillside.

To make matters more challenging for Henry, the deadbeat fathers of her children have long disappeared from their lives, leaving her to be sole provider – a parental responsibility she can hardly fulfil.

With the exception of her daughter Melonie, the children (aged 14 to 22 years) do not attend school, as Henry’s small income as a vendor at the May Pen market can do no more than purchase a few grocery items to feed the large family weekly. Due to the remote location of the district, taxi drivers charge passengers $600 per trip – an additional expense Henry cannot meet – to take her goods to and from the market.

“It rough bad. Every day I wonder

how we still alive,” Henry told the Sunday Observer.

“The last father is very stubborn and mi cannot deal with that situation. Him is a very carefree person and him don’t business with the children. I will rather seek help than put up with

him foolishness.”

To supplement the little money she earns at the market, Henry raises chickens in a tiny coop at home, and travels several miles on foot with a loaded donkey to sell the meat to housewives and shopkeepers in remote districts such as Bellas Gate and Rock River.

“That is what I have to do to get likkle money so that we don’t starve. And it is not just me in the district that can’t find it, almost everybody here struggling,” she pointed out.

Life in Mitchell’s Hill for the roughly 100 residents, is a daily uphill battle – literally! Every day they have to climb and descend a precipitous and badly-damaged track that leads to and from the centre of the district. The residents, many of whom are subsistence farmers, use donkeys to transport their loads of ground produce, as taxi drivers will not brave the treacherous terrain.

They also have to walk miles to the river to catch water for domestic purposes as no pipes are in the area. Little or no job opportunities exist.

Still, when Henry and her family rise each morning, they are greeted by the breathtakingly gorgeous Bull Head Mountains. But the view of the sun-kissed mountainside and the lush vegetation are the only beauties worth observing; everything else is daunting for this family. The evidence of poverty is everywhere, from the makeshift kitchen outdoors to the zinc-enclosed pit latrine.

Yet, underneath all the decay, the family has put in a lot of work to make the place feel like home.

“We have to use wood fire to cook,” Henry remarked, as she took the Sunday Observer on a brief tour of the yard. There are a few cash crops, which Henry said were planted by her mentally challenged brother.

Upon our arrival at the house, we are met with the sad news that Henry’s mother had fallen ill and had to be rushed to the doctor.

“Life is very rough,” Henry sighed, as life threw her one more blow. The news of her mother’s illness hit her hard. But she pressed on with her story.

“Sometimes we get good sale in the market and sometimes it bad, but we can’t give up because my mother and the children have to eat.”

Henry, a short, stout woman, said her ultimate goal is to get some assistance and save enough money to build her own house on a piece of land her mother has bequeathed her, and hopefully send two of her boys to trade school. She also has big dreams and aspirations for Melonie, who is enrolled at the St Anne’s Business College in May Pen.

“She already have two subjects and she doing four more now. My biggest daughter [Andrea, 32, who lives in May Pen] is the one that is helping me with her. I am hoping that somebody can offer me a little help with her so that she can get a scholarship to go to college because she is a bright girl and she is doing well so far,” she said. “That way I can use the money I’m saving to send Daneil and Dervan to learn a trade,” Henry said, her raspy voice cracking under the weight of her words.