By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Chief Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

THREE years after fleeing Haiti in search of safety and stability, Louise Joseph is again fighting to regain her footing — this time after a fire destroyed everything she owned over the weekend.

Ms Joseph, a hair braider known on TikTok as Mary Fox, was at work on Saturday when a call came just after 2pm: “Come home right away, your house is on fire.”

She rushed to her apartment across from Windsor Park, but by the time she arrived, her unit was engulfed in thick black smoke.

All the other renters salvaged their belongings. Hers was the only unit completely gutted.

“She lost everything in the fire,” her employer and friend, Erlande Cineas, said, recalling how Ms Joseph collapsed to the ground, holding her head in disbelief. “She lost clothes. She lost all her documents. She literally only was left with the clothes on her back, like she didn't save nothing.”

For Ms Joseph, the loss cuts deeper than the physical ruin. The apartment had become her refuge after leaving Haiti, a place she filled with reminders of the four children — ages six to fifteen — she supports from afar.

She told The Tribune the destruction has revived the despair she felt when she first arrived in The Bahamas, when she was unemployed and struggling with depression.

“While I didn’t want to leave my country, having four children with no father and finding work in Haiti is scarce and it’s not safe especially for a woman especially with the civil unrest,” she said through an interpreter, adding that she has legal papers to live in The Bahamas.

Now she has no home, no belongings and no sense of what comes next. Friends are sheltering her while she tries to navigate the aftermath.

“It's affected her family greatly because now whatever that is she may have had to help them. She has to now try to see how she can sort herself out, because her family is only equal to her strength,” Ms Cineas said. “So, she’s down and out.”

Some assistance has trickled in, but Ms Cineas said Ms Joseph needs far more to regain stability.

“A lot of times when persons hear a fire, they automatically think, oh, we need clothes, we need clothes. But there still is the issue of just trying to find a sense of normalcy, in that you still need somewhere else, somewhere to rest your head,” she added.

She urged the public to support the woman whose TikTok videos often lift the spirits of others battling depression, noting she can be contacted at 433-9044.