One woman’s extraordinary story of superhuman faith
MORE than a decade ago the happy life of a mother and wife was turned upside down when she received a call that her husband of several years had disappeared. She vividly remembers being told that the father of her children had been working in Guyana’s interior, in Kimbia, on board a boat when he fell overboard and vanished. He was never found even after many efforts and attempts conducted by search parties. And as days turned into months and months into years, it has now been 12 years since Somwattie Mohamed’s husband seemingly vanished from the face of the earth.

Somwattie calls Canal No.2, where she grew up, a quiet place. She shared that the village was small and with running water and electricity. This, she explained, taught her and her family the value of hard work. “Everything we had to do for ourselves. At that time, we did not have potable water. We did not have electricity, and my family knew about fetching buckets of water,” Somwattie shared in her interview with Pepperpot Magazine.

Her husband was her knight in shining armour who lived just a few houses away before they were married. The couple grew up together and fell in love, and they soon got married. The pair shared a two-year age gap and tied the knot when happy bride Somwattie was just 20. Somwattie shared that, “He would work in the interior and do grill work and so on.”

The pair had two children and a blissful relationship that lasted more than 15 years. Her husband was kind, a good father and a great provider, Somwattie explained. He worked as a fabrication welder and made his family his priority.

In their years of marriage, Somwattie shared that she could not remember her husband raising his voice or saying a harsh word. “We had a good relationship, we never quarrelled and he never told me anything bad. Everything was up to date with him,” she stated. For some time, their marriage was picturesque. With a happy marriage, two great children and a loving husband, Somwatties’s family seemed perfect.

That is until one day more than 12 years ago, Somwattie got the worst call a wife could have. She remembers vividly working on her sewing machine when she received the news. She was told that her husband had drowned. The story was that he had been working on board a piece of machinery in the Kamarang River when he fell into the water early one morning. It was as simple as that she stated.

The call she explained put her into shock. She was unable to process that he had died. During the last conversation the couple had, he told her this would be his last time working in the interior. “He told me that was the last time he was going to work in the bush. He told me we were going to buy a car and do his work at home,” Somwattie said.

The call that he had drowned was one matter that affected both her family and her husband’s family and pushed them apart. Refusing to give up hope, the families came together and chartered helicopters in search of the lost man. Time and time again, efforts were made, and search parties along the river banks shouted his name. Neither he nor his belongings were ever uncovered.

Their efforts exhausted the family’s energy and financial resources. “We came together and chartered helicopters to go and search for him. Then little money we had was finished behind that,” Somwattie stated. The loss of her husband felt more like an absence to the family. The lack of information surrounding his disappearance left the family and, more importantly, Somwattie, without the closure that they so desperately needed.

The Kamarang River had channels, Somwattie explained and they all lead to a single junction where all the debris of the river washed up. “I walked Kamarang river. They said that to be in the river, my husband had to know it well, and he did. When the water drops, you could walk across. And I walked across the river, but I did not find anything anywhere that belonged to him,” she expressed.

A clear conclusion was never reached even after various news entities published multiple articles. The family’s case was never closed, nor had their story ever ended.

And although the family has tried their best to move on, Somwattie still clings to the belief that her husband will someday return. “I say that one day he will come home. I have an openness that one day he will reach home,” she said. Without a body or a funeral, Somwattie simply cannot believe that her husband is gone. She believes that he will return someday. Perhaps if more information was given, an arrest and reopened investigation or something of that sort, she said. But for now, Somwattie believes that her husband will return and they will carry on as though he never had vanished.