Caribbean Thoughts
by Carol MitchellOur Gift
This is a difficult thing for me to say out loud for various reasons, but it is true. We West Indians are lucky to live on the western side of the Atlantic ocean.
I don’t intend to offend. Our life in Accra, Ghana is comfortable. We have the conveniences of modern living with some inconveniences thrown in, but life is imperfect everywhere. Accra is not a true reflection of Ghana. It is a relatively small section of a vast country where education levels and sanitation conditions vary significantly and many people do not have their basic needs met.
In my quest to get to know the “real” Ghana, I have recently learnt the details of certain customs that are practised in some parts of the country and by some tribes. To my Western mind many are torturous and inhumane. In many areas people battle with and succumb to diseases that we have overcome years ago in the Caribbean. The size of the country and the disparity in the distribution of wealth has meant that some have prospered but many have been left behind.
We received a gift from our forefathers, although I know they would not have recognised it as such. This gift was bought with their blood, their spirits and their lives, but there it is, we have it. We were given a chance to be something different and to create a new world for ourselves; to impact a new corner of the earth while our brothers continued to work on theirs.
What are we making of this gift? What do our forefathers think when they look at where our Caribbean countries have gone? Add your comments below and let me know.
