| – A mother of two tells her compelling story By Romila BoodramImagine being born with no eyes or without a hand or any other impediment. Imagine going to school with kids pointing fingers, laughing and teasing you, and even your neighbours looking at you with pitiful eyes.You know that you are not what is perceived as being normal,Cheap NFL Jerseys, and there is nothing you can do to change your life or the way people look at you, but to embrace your disorder and challenge life.Amanda AnthonyFor 52-year-old Amanda Anthony, not being normal has been a way of life from the minute came on this Earth. The Barima River, Region One woman was born with not fully developed lower limbs.Anthony’s experiences given her condition have varied over the years, and have etched themselves in her mind, but the mother of two quite vividly recalls something that she was told in her earlier years, and that has impacted upon her psyche to some extent.“My mother said when she was pregnant with me, a man with no legs from Bartica visited our home, and when she saw him she was scared and she ran into the room, screaming,wholesale nfl jerseys,” Anthony related.She added that when she was born, neighbours and family members told her mother, Beryl LaRose that she (LaRose) had mockingly laughed at the man with no legs, thus the reason for her child’s condition at birth. Anthony says that her mother insisted to her,Wholesale NFL Jerseys, later on in life, that she did not laugh at the man. And she wholeheartedly believes her mother.In December last, as part of a Christmas gift, Habitat for Humanity Guyana Incorporated partnered with Scotiabank Guyana and donated a two-bedroom home worth $2.5M to Anthony.During a recent interview, the woman related how happy she is to be a proud owner of a home. She recounted how difficult it was for her and her family to more than 20 times “from one shack to another” in search of a comfortable life.Because of the constant movement, her two children, Andrea Anthony, 20, and Andrew Jerome, 22, each attended school for only five years.GROWING UP“I spent most of my childhood days crying, because the children in our village would just look at me and laugh. Even when I was going to school they would torment me. I stayed away from school for months because of this torment,Jerseys From China,” Anthony related.She added that even her siblings would tease her about her not being “normal’.“I spent most of my time sitting on a bench at home and looking at my sisters playing in the streets. Of course I could never join them. It was difficult for me.”According to Anthony, as she grew older, she slowly started to accept the fact that she has no legs and tried to bravely embrace it. She also became a lot more adventurous.“I went out into the streets and I would play cricket with the other teenagers and we turned friends.”She said she dropped out of school at an early age because her parents could not have afforded to send her any longer.“When I was home I learnt to do different things. I learnt how to walk on rope by tying a rope between two trees and walk on it on my knees.”She reflected that despite having practically no legs, her “good looks and well-shaped body” certainly earned the attention of men in her village.“Oh boy, they weren’t easy. They used to trouble me so much, but I used to always tell myself that they will use me, so I never allowed them to get to me… but it use to bother me, because I always used to wonder if I would ever find a companion… and then all my friends had boyfriends except me,” the woman remembered.SIGNIFICANT CHANGESAnd yes, it did happen. At the age of 26, two years after she was secretly dating her now dead reputed husband, Carl Jerome, she got pregnant.“That was hell. My parents freaked out. They said that he would leave me, but he never did. He stood by my side until he passed away. When I carried him home my parents asked him a lot of questions and he answered all. They were forced to agree to the relationship because I was already pregnant.”According to Anthony, her husband built a small house at the back of her parents’ home and they lived there for seven years. During that period there were significant changes in her life.Anthony with Habitat for Humanity and Scotiabank staffers.“I gave birth to my two children right in the small house, and me and my husband used to plant vegetables to sell, but then people used to thief out everything, and my husband just get fed up and he tell me that we will leave the village. We packed and we moved to Vryheid’s Lust, East Coast Demerara, and we lived with his (Carl’s) parents for 12 years,Cheap Wholesale Jerseys, but his family used to ill-treat me, so eventually we had to move out,” Anthony said.She and her family moved to Kamuni Creek, up the Demerara River, where her husband cut cabbage for a living.“His cousins used to live there and they were cutting cabbage, and after I had problems with my mother-in-law, my husband, with the help of his cousins, built another small house in one day at Kamuni Creek,wholesale jerseys china, and we moved there.The woman explained that they lived there for only three months because “cutting cabbage” became too difficult for her husband.“We moved and we moved and we moved. It was extremely tiring for me,” Anthony said. She added that in 2005, she and her husband decided that they needed a decent and comfortable home, so they applied to the Ministry of Housing, but somehow never got through with a house lot.In 2011, her life took a turn for the worse. Her husband died of Malaria at the age of 47.“When he died nobody wanted to keep us. Me and my two children had to move back with my husband’s mother and then my son got a job in Friendship, East Bank Demerara where he had to take care of some animals, and his boss lady give us a house to stay, but then the work was too much for him and we moved back up the East Coast, and my son worked and we paid a rent,” the woman said.Anthony said that because of her disability, no one was willing to employ her. Her son, Andrew was the home’s only breadwinner. She said after struggling to pay rent and bills for two years, she approached Habitat for Humanity to seek help and that was the breakthrough which she had dreamt of all her life.“That day when the man at Habitat told me that I will get a home, I was so happy. I could not have believed that. That was one of the most amazing feelings that I had ever experienced,” the woman related with a smile.“Living a life without legs was difficult. No one was willing to employ me so my husband alone had to work. Going to bed wondering whether I will get food to feed my children the next day hurt me the most and living in ‘something’ that can collapse any day is something I never want to experience again.”Anthony is now resting comfortably in her new home with her kids. |
