Down in the dumps again after life had got a bit better

 

Suzana Mansor massaging the feet of her husband Rosman Darus at their temporary shack next to their home which had been torn down by TNB to be built afresh.

GEORGE TOWN: Things were looking up for a family who once lived in a derelict house at an oil palm estate in Balik Pulau after their story was published in FMT. Then, a road accident two weeks ago has put them back down in the dumps.

After FMT wrote about the family of garbage collector Rosman Darus, 47, and chicken seller Suzanna Mansor, 37, in May (here) they have been given a chicken coop and a new house, and Rosman moved up at work.

However, life came crashing down two weeks ago when Rosman was in an accident with a trailer on his way back from work, leaving him with his leg broken in three places, a broken kneecap and shattered collar bone. The family’s only motorcycle was also condemned.

“He was on the way back from work, bringing us lunch to eat. I got a shock after a stranger called me to say he was lying motionless on the road with our food spread out all over,” Suzanna told FMT when met at Kuala Sungai Pinang, Balik Pulau.

 The new house being built by contractors appointed by TNB.

During the interview, Rosman was heard groaning in pain while asleep. Suzanna said the hospital medicines have finished and she has no transport to get new ones. She said a friend took her to a nearby pharmacy to get painkillers at RM12 a strip.

“We were just birds who just started to flap our wings and now we’re going in reverse,” she added.

The old house before it was torn down in May.

After FMT reported about her family, the Agriculture Department built her a chicken coop in a pilot project so that Suzanna can rear her own chicks. She has been promised about 100 chicks to be supplied soon.

Tenaga Nasional Berhad will also build them a new house. Their old rickety house was demolished two weeks ago, and a temporary shack built for them to live in the meantime.

Rosman, then a garbage collector, got a new job driving a garbage truck about two months ago, with RM100 more in salary at RM1,300 a month.

Suzana and her children outside their new home. In the background with a red roof is a new chicken coop built by the Penang Agricultural Department so she can start her new chicken rearing business.

Suzanna, while waiting for chicks to fill her coop, has been selling fresh crabs from village to village on her motorcycle, thanks to a trader, and earned about RM70 a month, taking her two children along on her bike while she peddles her wares.

She said she has been asking friends and family to lend her a motorcycle so that she can peddle her fresh crabs and other produce as usual. She said her dream was to have a bike with a sidecar so she can transport her live chicken, with space for the kids to tag along.

Suzanna said Rosman was discharged four days after surgery at the Penang Hospital. He had refused to continue to be warded and wanted to return home quickly.

Suzana Mansor with her husband Rosman Darus, who suffered fractures of his left shin and his collarbone in an accident two weeks ago.

“I hope someone could help my husband’s pain problem and help me go back to work,” she said.

She said a “few YBs” past and present have come to give necessities, with two giving about RM50 each, which she said were spent on buying painkillers, bandages and other needs such as adult diapers for her husband.

She also receives RM200 cash aid every month from the welfare department.

Suzana said with most of the money going to her husband’s treatment, she could only cook meals of instant noodles to feed the family. Her old fridge, an ice-cream freezer salvaged from a landfill by her husband, gave way last month, leaving her without any place to store fresh food. - FMT