Family lives in car

“We are lost in this world. We feel completely lost.”

These were the heart-rending words of a homeless and desperate mother and father who have been forced to live with their three daughters in a battered old Nissan March car.

The family’s predicament began when Dave Nagoo, 38, was evicted in May from the house where he grew up in south Oropouche. Some time before, fire gutted the house but it was rebuilt. Nagoo said it was then relatives took action against him and put him, his wife Indira, 27, and three daughters out of the house.

“I remember crying on the side of the road. For the first time in my life I didn’t know what to do,” Nagoo told Sunday Newsday as he related the story of his life growing up with his brothers and sisters in the house. “But something terrible happened and all of us end up splitting-up.” Nagoo’s parents got divorced. He was 13.

When he was 16, his sisters moved in with their mother. He and his brothers remained in the house after their father moved away. Over the years his brothers got married and moved out until he remained in the house alone.

“I lived alone and you see all these African people in the village here, they are the ones who fed me and see about me. But you know, that was the age you does need your mother and your father.” Nagoo did odd jobs and had a few “brushes” with the law, as he had served time in jail. But he settled down and made a living planting crops, which he sold, on the land at the back of the house. He also had his own family.

When the fire damaged the house, Nagoo and his family stayed in what he called the garden house on the property. With assistance from government social agencies, he rebuilt the house. Then relatives moved in “and is then trouble start”. He claimed he was evicted and he and his family moved back into the garden house. At night, he slept in his car because there was little space for him in the garden house.

Barred from growing crops on the property, Nagoo began to sell fish on Kings Wharf.

One day, while his children were at school and his wife was at her mother’s home, he went to the garden house and found it had been demolished.

“Of course I cuss and get on and they call police for me.”

Nagoo has since been served with notices from the Siparia Magistrates’ Court where relatives filed private charges against him for using annoying language against them. Two were on May 31 and a third was on June 7. Nagoo said he built a camp on the outskirts of the property but relatives demolished that as well.

He and his family even stayed in the vegetable stall where he once sold his produce in front of the property. But last Wednesday, Nagoo was served with a restraining order to keep100 meters away from the property. He had little choice but to take his family away in their car. He packed their clothes, books, pots and spoons in the trunk and a piece of sponge in the back seat. He drove to Quinman beach in Penal and spent the rest of the day there. He cooked a meal for the children and when it became dark, he parked the car in front of the home of a relative in Quinam and they all slept in the vehicle.

On Thursday, he and his went to Cushe Village, near Biche in Mayaro, and spent the day on the beach where they cooked and bathed. In the night, he parked the March in front of a friend’s house and again he and his family slept in the car. On Friday, Ragoo said the family slept in the car on King’s Wharf next to the bus terminus.

Indira is standing by her husband. She told Sunday Newsday she knows his pain and feels the longing in his heart for family life. “We used to park up in bright places where it have lights for safety. We daughters thought it was a camping trip or a beach lime we going on. But, they knew something not right. It was hard for me to have to explain that we don’t have anywhere else to go,” she said.

Despite their pain and discomfort, the parents are encouraged by their daughters’ resolve as they go to school everyday and perform well. A few weeks ago, their ten-year-old daughter received two achievement certificates from for most disciplined student and most obedient student. The seven-year-old was recognised as the most disciplined student. The couple’s third daughter is eight.

Attorney Haresh Ramnath has taken up the plight of the family and plans to initiate legal action for them to recover the property and move back home.