Samantha Sinanan Her story of triumph

Originally, we agreed to meet in a lush outdoor park but the rain has doused those plans. She’s exiting the shop as I enter and when I greet her she smiles, shakes my hand, and says, “Hi!” Before this meeting, I don’t know much about Samantha Sinanan. I know she is hearing impaired and made it to the Top 14 round of Miss World Trinidad and Tobago 2017 pageant – everything else we have left up to our meeting.

I expect her to be accompanied by a translator or supportive friend, but it’s just her, dazzling in colourful garments, her eyelids dusted in bright pink and yellow shadow blanketed in sparkling dust. She leads us back into the shop and points out a table for me to take a seat.

As we take our seats next to a rain-splattered window, she explains that she can speak, but she cannot hear. “I can read lips sometimes as well,” she says, but she cannot gauge the volume of her voice, which may prove a hurdle when speaking in public spaces. She also explains that using technology to communicate is one of her pastimes and assists her daily in effectively conversing with others.

To an onlooker, we are two abled persons having a conversation; I nod and smile while Samantha answers my questions – softly and demurely – accompanied by flowing hand gestures and short pauses to think.

Sometimes her fingers distractedly stroke her flowing locks over her shoulder. Apart from the softness of her voice, she does not seem like a shy person; she certainly isn’t afraid to hold eye contact while she begins to share her story.

“I lost my hearing when I was 11-years-old,” is one of the first things she tells me – perhaps out of tradition to satisfy people’s curiousity – but the pages of Samantha’s story were being written long before this.

To fully grasp the woman of poise, strength, and pride she is today, we must look further into her past than the moment she lost the ability to hear.

Her own childhood intersects closely with her mother’s childhood: a woman who was abandoned in a garbage heap because she was a girl, which was considered the wrong sex by her mother. “She was adopted by the person who found her, but her life changed drastically when she was married off at the age of 12,” Samantha says of her mother’s own cruel formative years as a child bride. Her first child came at the age of 13, and she would have four more children before Samantha, the sixth and final offspring to her family.

“While my mother was pregnant with me, my father asked her to have an abortion. He refused to stay with her unless she did so,” she says of her father’s ultimatum. Making good on his threat, he stepped out of the picture around the time of Samantha’s birth, an occurrence that negatively affected her mother’s mental and emotional balance. With her mother unable and deemed unfit to care for her newborn daughter, a neighbour raised Samantha.

“But the neighbourhood in front of us saw it as an opportunity to use me as a child labourer,” she recalls of these unfortunate times, relating stories of scrubbing toilets, doing endless piles of laundry, and sweaty yard work that left her body aching.

“I had to wash my own clothes as a 7-year-old and send myself to school,” she reveals of the brash independence she gained early on in her life. It was around this time that her elder sister was also diagnosed with a form of mental illness. “The situation became harder and I would usually suffer beatings by her and other family members, too,” Samantha recalls the physical abuse she was subjected to. She also relied on free meals at school for sustenance as she says there was often nothing to eat at home. A boyfriend of her eldest sister would often beat Samantha on his visits and, as she mentions only momentarily, sexually abused her as a child. Eventually this sister would move out, leaving only Samantha, her mentally ill sister, a brother, and her mother in her childhood home: a dark and unwelcome structure with no windows and an almost-bare interior.

“We would always fight because we were so poor,” she says of the tumultuous times with her family, compounded by their lack of access to money, food, and other necessities like running water and electricity that many take for granted.

Even through all this, Samantha had a dream for herself. “I wanted to become a lawyer,” she tells me softly. She closes her mouth and composes herself before continuing; “I still wanted to make something of myself despite everything. But all that changed when I was eleven…” The rain outside the coffee place has started to come down again; fat grey drops that reflect the elephant-skin colour of the dense sky in the distance.

The table we are occupying is scattered with some papers and our phones – all littered with words and shared communication over the course of our conversation thus far. A coffee grinder spins noisily behind the counter. Communicating with Samantha takes on many forms; either written, typed, mouthed, or gestured. “What happened to your dreams of becoming a lawyer?” I scribble hastily on one of the pieces of paper on the tabletop.

She tells the story of losing her hearing; it is not long or over-explained. It first reared its head as an ear infection, and then developed to hearing loss. She remembers the depressive state her life personified after this occurrence.

“My dreams of becoming a lawyer, as well as my education, went down the drain; it was difficult to adjust without my hearing. My family and teachers didn’t know how to accept the situation at the time; my life was a total mess.” Added to this, Samantha’s home life was still very much disjointed, as she moved between family homes, all the while still suffering verbal and physical forms of abuse. Her loss of hearing did nothing to curb the victimisation she would face at the hands of family and schoolmates.

As the years progressed, she learned to accept her differently abled status slowly; she did not want to be left behind and so she learned to read lips in order to survive in the world. The task was not an easy one but it was her only hope of piecing together the brokenness she felt and reentering the world confidently as a functioning person.

“All my strength, courage, and determination came from God; without Him I’d be nothing. This was God’s purpose for me in life.” At the age of 19, she would once again have to call on strength, courage, and determination as another blow was dealt: her mother was murdered just a few houses away from her sister’s home, where Samantha lived at the time.

“My mother wasn’t perfect in life; she was mentally ill but she was always a mother to me and I loved her with all my heart. She was always up on mornings to see me off to school and always there when I returned,” she describes her mother, who despite personal hardships and flaws, supported her in the ways she could.

“Losing her shattered me deeply… even through everything else in my life, [her death] was by far the worst experience.” The murder left her feeling empty and directionless once again, and she became bitter towards the world and men in particular.

It was during the time of her healing that Samantha discovered a passion that she holds dear today. Through modeling, she not only put her best face forward but finally found a mode of expressing her hardships and triumphs, as well as spreading encouraging messages to others through the bravery to share her story. She first entered the local pageant arena in the Miss Charlieville competition, and found a second home and mentor in the likes of Jacqui Koon How, owner of House of Jacqui, a company that specialises in churning out fashion industry and beauty pageant success stories.

“My greatest triumph in life, thus far,” Samantha says to me softly across the table, “was being able to create history this year in TT as the first hearing impaired contestant to enter the Miss World TT national competition.” She says she accepted her disability wholeheartedly a long time ago, but to see her self-love and determination come to fruition when chosen as part of the Top 14 for this year’s national pageant further affirmed that her disability is not a hindrance to her goals.

“I was disappointed… of course, I was disappointed,” she says slowly about not making it to the finals of this year’s pageant, but she is moving forward with even more determination than ever. She has one more viable year to enter for a chance to represent TT at the international competition in 2018 and she has already begun preparing.

Another passion of hers is learning to play the violin; a task she assures me is quite possible for hearing impaired persons. She hopes that learning such a talent will not only open her up to a new challenge but also place her at an advantage to breakthrough with a coveted spot in TT’s Top 8 at the national competition in 2018.

She is also hoping to open her own foundation that will assist children living in situations very much similar to hers.

Today, she is a manager at a company that specialises in the IT field, where her responsibilities are varied and numerous.

She also has a sideline job as a makeup artist for her friends, family, and personal acquaintances (she did her own makeup for our meeting, and looks like the rightful star she is).

However, she still remembers when life was not this kind to her and she hopes through charitable work she can assist the less fortunate. “The situations I had to face in life as a child, I know what it feels like to be in negative situations.

I know if I can change their world, maybe our world will become a better place for others,” she says of her rationale and passion behind helping people, especially children, in need. She taps her forearm a few times with her fingers and says, “As the saying goes: who feels it, knows it and I surely live by those words.” She shares that she is now in the process of penning her first book, an autobiography titled “Destiny”, that not only details the many sufferings of her early life, but also her triumphant resurrection on the opposite side of such hardships.

“As a child, I had to raise myself, was used for child labour, abused at home, bullied, mocked, laughed at, and scorned.

These stories are my life, my experiences, my sufferings, which I know will make an impact on people’s lives,” she tells me matter-of-factly; she knows that her harrowing story is one that is, sadly, not a unique one to young girls and women in our country and region. “I believe that my story can be the key that unlocks someone else’s prison; that’s why I’m never afraid to share it.” She hopes upon its release, “Destiny” will be able to touch lives on intersectional levels; whether victims, survivors, abusive partners, or social activists and authoritative agencies. As our conversation wraps up, we begin clearing our table and exit the building. Outside is still wet and dreary, but the rain has stopped. Toward the horizon, the weak, bleak whiteness of the sun behind the overcast sky peeks out hopefully.

We hug goodbye – a warmer farewell than our stilted greeting – and I commend her bravery. She smiles and nods knowingly.

“I know this wasn’t one of your questions…” she says hesitantly before we part for good. I lean toward her with an expectant look to let her know I’m listening.

“I’m very courageous, determined, caring, and down to earth,” she says. Outside, in the cool air away from the noisy coffee grinder, it’s much easier to hear her voice; soft but strong, a little rushed but still forthright. I nod laughingly and assure her that these traits were quite obvious during our conversation.

She continues, “Despite my sad life, I’ve become a different person, a person who will make changes in this world. All my experiences and challenges I faced in life, I overcame through self-acceptance and my faith. I love myself unconditionally, in spite of my disability.

“And I want other people with disabilities to know that anything is possible for them – just like me.”