‘Mi nah mek she fall behind’ - Trelawny mom turns ruined house into classroom for daughter

In a bare one-room shell with no furniture and no roof, 24-year-old Shanea Brown has turned survival into schooltime.

While Hurricane Melissa has forced the closure of several schools, Brown has refused to let the disaster steal her child's future.

"Storm come mash up everything, but mi nah mek she fall behind," Brown insisted. "School lock but learning nah lock."

Just weeks ago, life in German Town in Ulster Spring, Trelawny, moved in a steady rhythm. Brown's daughter, Kemara, attended an early-childhood institution nearby while she stayed home caring for her other child, five-month-old Kemoya. Her partner, 32-year-old construction worker Kemar Minto, worked enough to keep the family stable. That calm shattered the moment Melissa roared through western Jamaica.

Approximately 146,000 buildings impacted by hurricane Melissa across Jamaica sustained major to severe structural damage, authorities have disclosed. Brown's house is among the buildings stripped or felled by the Category 5 storm. Across the community, the destruction was just as fierce.

Brown's daughter's school is expected to reopen next week. Until then, she has transformed into a one-woman teaching force.

"Mi sit her pon the mattress wid a pencil and draw letters, numbers anything mi can," she said.

"When she get something right, mi feel proud like a real teacher."

But her biggest tests aren't in the workbooks.

German Town's water system took a hit during the storm, leaving families without a reliable source of potable water. When THE WEEKEND STAR visited the community on Tuesday, Brown and Minto were washing clothes at a nearby spring.

"The pipe dem mash up, so we affi buy water," Minto said. "And water we buy, yuh caah drink. Nuff time a river water dem ketch and sell back."

Leptospirosis fears loom, work has dried up, and Minto - once fully employed - now faces long, empty days.

"Bway, construction stall out," he said. "Mi have no roof, no furniture, no work. Sufferation just start."

The couple now rations whatever they have. Around them, neighbours sleep in damaged buildings, share rooms, and queue for water - everyone still shaken by Melissa's fury.

"Is not just we. Whole heap a people mash up," Minto added. "Some a try help themselves, but plenty still stuck."

Yet every day, Brown pushes back against the chaos. Between breastfeeding, water runs, and scrubbing clothes by the spring, she sits with little Kemara to trace letters and count numbers.

"Sometimes mi teach her while di baby a bawl," she said. "Mi tired, mi stress, but once she a learn, mi feel like mi win something."

Her dream, though modest, feels monumental--just a stable home where her daughter can read in peace. After weeks squeezed into a cracked, leaking room, the idea of her child having her own quiet corner feels almost magical.

"Mi want she have a room wid a door she can close and a little desk fi do homework," Brown said. "Dat alone woulda make mi feel like life turn 'round."

And she refuses to let Melissa dictate her daughter's destiny. "Hurricane mash up the house," she said firmly, "but it nah mash up my child future."