Scholarship siblings also hit by flooding

DESPITE losing most of their material possessions from last month’s heavy flooding, a Valsayn family of four are determined to work together in order to replace what was lost and are confident in time they will restore their home.

Speaking with Newsday yesterday, Mark Ramkalawan said he lost his BMW and Audi cars during the flooding as well as all of his furniture and appliances during the flooding.

His son Jordan, won an open scholarship in mathematics for his performance in this year’s Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination and is expected to attend the Florida Institute of Technology next year. His daughter Jesse also won a scholarship in 2016 and is expected to begin a masters programme in medical physics at the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom.

Ramkalawan says despite the challenge of refurnishing their home, he is pleased with the support from his loved ones and says his son’s schoolmates have also helped in clearing the home of items.

“We are back to square one right now. All of our furniture, appliances and so on is gone. My son’s friends, about ten of them, came by and helped clean the house. The living room only has furniture I had on my front porch and the tv room only has beach chairs and the like. We had flood gates, but even that wasn’t enough to mitigate the flooding.

“This is not the first time this has happened. I’m not blaming any particular political party, but one of the past governments had the power to deal with this. We talk about retention ponds, sluice gates and so on for that Caroni river and nothing has been done today. I will be 50 years old this year and I cannot go through this again.”

Ramkalawan said while the family may have escaped the disaster physically unharmed, he feels that the trauma of the incident will stay with them for some time.