LAMP SHADE SUCCESS

FOR eight months, 11-year-old Oscar Babootee studied with a kerosene lamp for his SEA examinations. In fact, for most of his primary school years, Oscar and his four brothers and sister, used a lamp to do their home work because the family had no electricity. Amazingly, Oscar has topped his school, placed fifth in the country and 50th in the Caribbean in the recent SEA results. He passed for Presentation College, Chaguanas, his first choice. He was a pupil of the Carapichaima ASJA Primary School. The Babootee family has suffered great anguish. They live in a bare, unpainted, small hovel in a squatters’ settlement at Waterloo Road, Cara-pichaima.

Oscar’s mother, Doolarie, believes her husband, who  migrated to the United States five years ago, may or may not return home. She had been forced, she said, to work as a housekeeper to make ends meet. She said she used to feel dispirited. The Babootees, in their simple two-bedroom shack with no electricity, felt shut out from the rest of the world. Doolarie, however, was determined that her children must not suffer the same fate as herself. She put into a effect a strict regimen of school studies and play for her children. While most children relaxed at home after school, Oscar had no choice but to make full use of the daylight hours to complete his homework. “I do all my homework as I reach from school, especially maths,” Oscar told Sunday Newsday.

At nights, his brother Kabir, 18, would place a piece of foil paper through the lamp so the flickering flame would not hurt Oscar’s eyes. The foil had the effect also of spreading the light to a larger area across the wooden table which Oscar studied on. “I did all my class projects with the lamp. All my compositions and comprehension,” Oscar, who never seemed to stop smiling, said. The first eight months of his SEA examination year, Oscar said he studied from six o’ clock in the evening for three hours each night. But apparently, the lamp took a toll on Oscar’s eyes. A neighbour volunteered to give the Babootees an electrical connection but that being illegal, the family accepted it temporarily for Oscar’s studies. Last January, the family was able to afford electricity. 

Asked what he attributed to his success, Oscar quipped, “God, my mummy and teacher Shaliza.” He scored 100 percent in Creative Writing and Mathematics. His mark in Language Arts was 94 percent. His teacher, Shaliza Mohammed, described Oscar as a child who wore a perpetual smile on his face. Oscar is still very fascinated by the foil around the lamp shade which he still keeps in a corner of his bedroom. Ironically, he wants to become an electrical engineer.