The power of ambition
Mom pleased after daughter battles through trying circumstances to become a teacher
Published:Saturday | August 20, 2022 | 12:06 AMAinsworth Morris/Staff Reporter
Sitting in a dirt-base, partially collapsed one-room shack as she studied each night using a flashlight from her cellphone, Anita Stephenson was determined to excel and power her way through high school and teacher’s college to improve hers and her mom’s standard of living.
For the past five years, Stephenson and her mom, Dezreen Miller, have been enduring trying circumstances as they battled the elements and watched their Olympic Gardens, St Andrew home deteriorate further by the day.
The structure is made up of old wood, rotten plyboard, and rusted pieces of zinc, which they try to seal with candle wax whenever holes appear.
The bed they share is located about two feet away from their stove, half the top of which is used for storage in the cramped space.
They also have a makeshift latrine with a pit dug by Miller.
Stephenson, 23, recalled returning home from school four years ago to a dreadful scene as a tree collapsed into the house.
“When I came in, the yard looked different, and I said, ‘How the yard look so different?’” she told The Gleaner. “And then when I pulled the door, I saw the ackee tree in the house and I said, ‘Alright, it is what it is’.”
Despite the struggle, she was able to pass her Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate and Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination subjects. She has just now completed a degree programme at Shortwood Teachers’ College and is looking forward to her first job as an educator come September.
“When I started to scout for college, it (the house) was still like this, and I was saying, ‘How am I going to pay for college?’ I didn’t have any money [but] my football coach from Camperdown High, he said, ‘Anita, apply for Shortwood Teachers’ College’,” she recalled.
After applying, she got a call from the football coach at Shortwood informing her of a scholarship opportunity.
“That is how I got the start to go to college and this is my last year,” a relieved Stephenson said.
Studying in the ramshackle home was no easy feat, she said.
“It’s getting worse because when the rain comes, it wets the boards, and when [the water] flows, it damages the furniture, so majority of the furniture in here is damaged,” Stephenson said, noting that food items are kept in a barrel to protect them from the elements, but even then, weevil gets into them.
“Some of the times we have problems with the roaches, so sometimes the roaches will fly in, especially at nights – a lot of roaches,” she said.
The duo told The Gleaner that their church family assisted them greatly with their daily needs and to get Stephenson through college.
Miller explained that it was after they were evicted from a former rented property that they made their way to this location.
“When I get here to lease, I came and chop it down myself and burn it. I get some stick and zinc and nail up and people give me piece piece of material, and mi nail up and nail up,” she said.
She was also able to do the block outline for another foundation, but, over the years, she has not been able to move any further.
The conditions are far from ideal, but the pair said they would rather live there than have to pay rent for another property and risk being evicted again.
Disclosing that she did odd jobs on construction sites and as a domestic worker, 53-year-old Miller said the journey has not been easy . She is elated that Stephenson has now finished her studies.
“I tried hard with her and I’m glad to see that she come out, and I’m glad she hold up her life. I struggle very hard. Anyweh di little little work deh, I do it fi mek she comfortable and alright. What I have, I give it to her and mek she go to school,” Miller told The Gleaner.
The mother said that on many days, they went without food and ate mangoes for breakfast.
“Most of the mornings she a go school, a mango ... Most of the mornings, early mi run go under di mango tree and pick up mango and bring it go work,” she said. “Most of the days dem when she comes from school, I don’t have nothing to eat. She [would] go for a cup of shrimp and hot it for me and her, and say, ‘So Mommy, you stressed?’. Mi seh, ‘No, I don’t stress’, but I don’t want she know.”
Miller recalled that because they did not have electricity, she would inadvertently burn Stephenson’s uniform with a clothing iron after heating it on the stove.
“Every minute di uniform burn up and when she go school, she tell di teacher seh a me burn it up. Mi never do it fi spite but the iron too hot and me inna haste most of di time and it just ketch a fire, and mi tell her mi can’t do any better and she sew it up and she go school same way and she nuh watch nothing,” Miller said.
“I don’t want she suffer like me and go through nuh struggle ... She a pass di worst and she a come out to something, so mi just thank God fi everything,” Miller added.
Miller said that she used humour to cope with her trying circumstances.
“Nuff of the people dem nuh know still, ‘cause me de a work and mi a gi joke same way and a laugh, but dem don’t know deep down inna mi heart how mi feel,” she told The Gleaner. “Sometimes mi feel break down. Sometimes mi seh, ‘Lawd Jesus, a wah dis?’ And mi seh, ‘How some people mad?’, and mi seh, ‘You know wah? A better mi go road and laugh and give people joke’,” she said.
She admitted to feeling hurt when people would see their poor living conditions and label her as mad, adding that she is happy the negative comments from persons in the community did not derail Stephenson’s journey to success.
Miller is not asking for any handouts and believes that 2022 is their year of victory as her daughter will be starting her first job as a teacher in two weeks.