The weather has cooled, especially the humidity, and the physical part of living here is much more comfortable. I've even found myself wishing for a blanket on a few cool nights.
Carnival parades and Calypso contests have come to an end, children have returned to school and the government has approved the annual budgets for each Ministry, but still we have no supplies: no ink for printing, no copy paper, no pens, pencils or crayons, AND no toilet paper. It is insane to work in an office without toilet paper!
The budget for the Ministry of Youth Empowerment is similar to that of last year, and still has no line item for program implementation. The five hour "consultative process" staff meeting we had back in October when we discussed the focus of the department for 2012 presented one common concern among staff: money for program implementation. We were promised that this would be included in the 2012 budget, but it wasn't. And what does this mean for the kids and the department? Not much for either one, and a disaster for office morale.
The Primary School Debate that was supposed to take place next Monday was cancelled today because it is the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Anniversary Celebration and the Department of Education has loaded up teacher's with have to do's in honor of this occasion leaving no time for learning stuff like critical thinking and presentation preparation; language skills and how to exchange ideas; listening to others and essentially practicing the art of communication. Great decision making on the part of the educators.
I could never live in a place such as this where money is said to be available but not released; where programs are developed but not implemented - or worse yet where programs are implemented but not developed resulting in chaos and disappointment for participants; where promises are made to young people, their parents and community stakeholders, yet broken time and time again; where no one is held accountable and few people care.
A 16 year old boy was shot a couple of weeks ago because he was gay. A hate crime or "bias motivated " crime straight from the archives of history at its most awful. Some say there is no proof the shooting was related to the boy's sexual orientation, others say that he deserved what he got for being so flamboyant, and others claim he was targeted because of something he wrote on his blog or Facebook or some other such nonsense. It appears that the truth is not relevant when people are in denial of their homophobia and personal bias. Bigotry and oppression, the ugliest side of the human spirit. The boy is still alive but paralyzed. It wasn't the first time he'd been physically assaulted either, just the first time the weapon was a gun. So much for the golden rule. A campaign for tolerance too, needs to be taught on this island "paradise"
I watched a chicken cross the road on Fort Street in Basseterre this morning. He did make it to the other side, but barely. It was rush hour.
And so it goes this 8th day of February 2012.
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