An elderly Penal couple and their grandson are now homeless after a blaze gutted their Digitty Trace house on March 28.
They are now pleading for help to get materials to rebuild.
With a cigarette in one hand and a cup of coffee resting on the bannister beside him, Daniel Gangaram, 74, lay in his hammock in the only part of his home which remained relatively untouched by the fire.
He had not too long awoken after spending the night in his car.
Gangaram has been working as a labourer all his life but retired around five years ago owing to various health conditions. He spent most of his days doing work around the house he built almost two decades ago.
>
"My father-in-law give me this two lots of land here. I come and I backfill it and thing. To backfill here alone cost me nearly $60,000 because here was a big hole. Truckload by truckload of dirt I bringing after I work and full up the place and then I start to build."
Gangaram said his wife Mala, 60, and their two daughters and son worked round the clock to build the house. He believes he spent around $250,000 over four years creating somewhere they called home.
"While I working, when I come home in the evening, if it's 20 bricks, 30 bricks I put up and so on I going."
Although retired, he said he was forced to pick up a part-time job in San Francique to pay for the car's insurance which was due next month. He was at this job when he said he received a call around 10 am that his house was on fire. Luckily, no one was at home.
He arrived just as the fire service was leaving and was told the structure was too compromised to live in.
His wife and grandson, 19, spent the night at their daughter-in-law's home nearby. Gangaram refused to go because he said he did not like staying by people's homes.
He said he lost all his tools and admits he is not as strong as he was when he first constructed it.
Despite this, he is determined to continue providing for his family. He believes if he can get lumber, he can rebuild a wooden structure around his garage shed which is still standing and demolish the burnt concrete structure.
>
"Me ain't have no set of money to build back a house but what I go do, if it's plywood and thing self, I have them shed and them here. I could bar up and make a room, bar up there and make a next room and build a little thing out of plyboard outside. That's all I could do. At my age, I can't build a house."
He added: "Clothes and thing you does get it cheap in Penal, the used clothes. Me ain't studying clothes and things."
One of his favourite pastimes since retiring was sitting in his hammock and listening to his birds sing in their cages, however, after the fire, he said he sold one of his bullfinches to get money to buy necessities.
"I had to sell my good, good bird. Me ain't have no other choice. I had to get money to move around.
"I used to put meh hand in (the cage) and play with him and he used to bend he head for me to scratch he head."
Assistant Chief Fire Officer Mukharji Rampersad told Newsday preliminary assessments indicate the fire was "non-accidental" but a definitive conclusion would come when investigations are completed. He expects that this should be by the end of the week, owing to the two public holidays.
Anyone willing to help Gangaram and his family can contact 383-3564, 305-0570 or 298-4704.
