Weldaad blaze: “All of us are hustling” – daughter

…as family focuses on rebuilding

Following the fire on Saturday afternoon at Weldaad Village, West Coast Berbice, Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice) which left twelve persons homeless, the family is making arrangements to get back on their feet but desperately needs public assistance.
The fire flattened the Lot 22 Weldaad Village, two-storey building, and family members were unable to save anything but their lives and the clothing they were wearing at the time.
A construction crew that was passing at the time was able to remove an electric bike from the burning building.
On Sunday when this publication visited the site, it was being cleared with the aid of an excavator.

Yolanda Reynolds, one of the seven siblings, told this publication that while the focus now is on rebuilding, they are unable to do it on their own.
“My mother is a single parent; it is seven children. All of us are hustling. I work in the interior, but you have to spend months there before you can get a little.”
She pointed out that she came home the day before the fire and went to Linden to attend a cousin’s funeral and while there, she heard that the house was on fire.
“Everything that I came with gone, when I reached home it was night and it was flat on the ground.”
Her 64-year-old mother, Marlyn Fraser, said she was playing a game on her phone when she sensed that something was burning. She asked a grandchild to go and investigate. The child returned and stated that smoke was in one of the bedrooms.
“I take time to get up because I can’t just jump up and go because of the problem with my knees. When I pushed the room door the mattress was burning.”
She said her initial plan was to pick up the mattress and throw it throw the window even if it meant breaking the window panes.
“As soon as I raised up the mattress, I don’t know if it is the air that caused that but it started to blaze, so I put it down and ran to the kitchen.”
Fraser said that she could not find a bucket to dose the blaze with water.
She said she asked her two grandchildren ages four and six for assistance but the children were in a state of confusion.
“So it took my carpet that was on my kitchen floor and took it to the sink. It took some time to soak. When I went to the room and pushed the door because I wanted to spread the wet carpet over the fire but when I pushed open the door, I had to turn back. I did not make a second attempt because I was feeling the heat outside, so I dropped the carpet and told the children to run.”
The woman said she was able to make it out of the burning building and together with a neighbour sought assistance but was unsuccessful.
“Two guys stopped with a truck and they came in but the fire was blazing. They saw the motorbike downstairs in the verandah and they moved that.”
Fraser and six of her children lived on the upper flat with two of grans while on the lower another grand lived with his parents.
“I sit on the road corner and watched that entire house – the upstairs go up in flames before it come and burn the bottom flat,” she said sadly.
Meanwhile, her daughter said they need construction material which includes sand, cement, and stone. “Everything we need,” she said.
The family can be contacted through telephone number (592) 663-1430. (G4)