78-year-old woman living at edge of drain

78-year-old Rafina Cornell has made her home at the edge of a drain in San Fernando. A stone’s throw from the hustle and bustle of the city, Cornell’s doll house type shack catches the eyes of  everyone entering and leaving San Fernando along the Tarouba By-pass. Whenever there are heavy rains, Cornell’s shack is washed away, but by the next day, it is up  again. Cornell, who grew up in an orphanage, took to squatting on state lands. She made many empty plots at Tarouba, along the By-pass in the vicinity of the San Fernando Technical Institute, her home. Tarouba is the cause of much legal and political wrangling over squatting plots. Cornell squatted there for 25 years until the National Housing Authority’s escavators recently forced squatters off the Tarouba lands. The elderly Cornell was one of them.

With no family or friends to turn to, a frail Cornell sought refuge on lands next to the Technical Institute. Recently, a private developer bought the lands and evicted Cornell. With her own hands, Cornell put together a five- feet-high wooden shack on the edge of the ten-feet wide concrete drain mere feet from the roadway along the By-pass. The Ministry of Works has broken down her shack twice to safeguard Cornell from being washed away. The drain is about eight-feet deep and twice last week, heavy rains washed away the woman’s shack. The woman’s only worldly possessions are a few pieces of clothing and bits of twisted cooking utensils.

Cornell spends most of the day sitting outside gazing at vehicles. When there is a heavy downpour of rain, the elderly woman limps across the By-pass and seeks shelter under a tree. When Newsday visited Cornell yesterday, she was cooking a meal in a pot perched on a kerosene stove. Cornell does not know if she has any relatives or friends. She said no family members ever visited her during her stay at the Belmont Orphanage. “All my life I seeing trouble. Ah fighting hard to live,” Cornell said. The other side of the river is overgrown by bushes and Cornell said that her only visitors are known bandits who ease their way into her shack every month end, and steal her old age pension.