your family update
You Backed them and things began to change
“We gave the shed to our daughter and we lived in a chicken cage for two years. We didn’t have any other option at that time.”
I want to share a little bit about Minnoly. She’s 55 and living in a tiny cottage in a small village in Sri Lanka called Eachchantheevu with her husband and their two grandchildren, a 15 year old boy and an 11 year old boy.
When their daughter got married, Minnoly and her husband handed over the only shelter they had so she could have a start. And when we say shed, we’re talking about a basic temporary structure, no proper walls, no real protection from the rain, just something held together to keep a family covered. That’s what they gave away, and for two years they moved into something even smaller than that, what she calls a chicken cage, because there was just nowhere else to go. When you hear that, you kind of just stop for a moment.
Their daughter eventually separated from her husband, both moved on and remarried, and the two boys were left behind. So Minnoly and her husband, who are at an age where most people are being looked after, are now the ones doing the looking after.
Her husband takes on whatever seasonal labour work he can find but the income comes and goes and some weeks there is just nothing coming in. On those weeks they buy food on credit from a nearby shop and pay it back when they can. Minnoly also goes out for seasonal agriculture work herself to help cover the gap, but between feeding everyone and paying for the boys’ extra classes at school, it’s always a stretch.
At their age, most grandparents are sitting back and watching their grandkids grow, but Minnoly and her husband are still out working just to keep food on the table and the boys in school. Their whole hope right now is those two boys and getting them through their education, that’s what they are working towards every single day.