C vs OOPS languages

I know most of you are not like me. Jobless SAHM with lots of time on hand. But if you are having some time in the office also, you can check out this site . It has many certification test in various programming topics which includes C, C++, Java, Linux, Unix, HTML etc. And there will be programming challenges. And the best part is all these are free.
When writing for one such challenge, I realized the draw backs of C. The challenge was to write reverse Burrow wheeler transformation of a file. I started writing it in C. Tried compiling in mingw C compiler. Then compiled them using cygwin.  The major problem was memory allocation. Cygwin did not have permission to release the memory using free (at least that is what I thought) and if I did not release the memory, there was heap problem. Then I rewrote the program in Java using eclipse IDE. It hardly took me an hour to write debug and produce output.
I am and have been a strong supporter of C. But in C, you not only have to invent the wheel all over again, you have to chisel it out yourself and assemble it and then you will have an ugly looking rickety cart. Whereas an OOPS language provides you everything in a platter, you just have to assemble the parts with the help of instruction  manual to produce a great (almost) looking car (at least).