“Pleeaase, can I have it?”
“Why?”
“John has one?”
“Why?”
“I don’t know!”
“Why?”
“I’m the child, I ask why; you’re a mummy, you buy.”
“Now I’m the why person, so you’re …
Category Archives: Trifecta
Mouthing off over a big hole
“US$25.6 million? To redo Harrison’s Cave? That money should go to developing projects to ease poverty; like building factory shells to attract investors and bring jobs, unemployment over 10 per cent.”
“Maude, hush, the cave attracts tourists and bring in money to spend on all those things.”
“Tourists, what? First, you have to spend money encouraging them here. Things tight in the big countries too, so you have to give them discounted holidays. Before we recoup that repair bill, we will have to repair again.”
“Girl, you ain’t no economist or financial analyst, you didn’t even go to college. You think our Prime Minister’s stupid; we’re getting tourist dollars including entry fees to the cave. They buy from souvenirs from the shop that covers the cave’s mouth, too.”
“Spend money? Not these tourists nowadays. I don’t have letters after my name but as a hotel maid, I know what’s going on upfront before the analysts. They look at the picture afterwards as figures; I talk to tourists as people. Visitors ain’t spending, they aren’t even buying a postcard not when it is cheaper to take pictures as souvenirs; they don’t have to buy or develop film no more. Souvenirs? Most of the trinkets at that shop are marked “Made in China.”
“Maude, you’re behaving like an opposition politician, and they aren’t so negative about this.”
“Only Saying, the tourists don’t buy a lot from us … they’re into circulating their own money. We buy food and everything else from their countries so they can get what is familiar when they get here. Tourism is the reason we import 75 per cent of what we use in this country.”
“So if you’re against tourism, why you don’t find another job?”
“I’m speaking facts, I’m not against them. I’m saying a developing country CAN’T AFFORD TO spend thousands for tourists to go down a glorified hole to see the earth’s guts.”
(Postscript: This was written for Trifecta competition which asked bloggers to produce a post including the word ‘mouth’ defined as:
3: something that resembles a mouth especially in affording entrance or exit: as
Related articles:
How Long To Pay Back $51 Million Barbados “Investment” In Harrison’s Cave?
Harrison’s Cave Reopens ( Barbados Government Information Service)
Tribute to Doverock: another Moses in the ultimate Promised Land.
Today Daily Prompt says: write your own eulogy. Here is mine.
Eulogy to Doverock
Good morning mourners, I am getting more ‘Goodbyes’ today than I’ve ever had”hellos”. That speaks volumes to the networks of my friends whom, I believe, most of you are here to support.
My non-cyber space friends were few, three to be exact. I hid behind my computer, an anti-social blogger, writing posts hoping to cheer up the world, to make the world think and to make the world act. At times, I sought to educate or integrate; other times, I aimed to entertain or simply agitate.
My soul mate Caribbeanmarvel, often described me as an enigma; someone antisocial yet pro-social and expansive. But I did not see myself in descriptive terms. I was not an adjective rather I was a Caribbean woman on a mission, a modern day Moses leading thousands of followers along the virtual timeless, borderless communication route towards the promised global village but unlike the Biblical Moses, my followers were not of one race or from one place.
English: Moses Sees the Promised Land from Afar, as in Numbers 27:12, by James Tissot (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I attracted and sought after people from all classes, nationalities, cultures, races, creed and sexual orientation. With my blog as my staff, this modern day Moses shared perspectives among my diverse group of followers, parting the sea of ignorance, freeing those enslaved by discrimination and ridding the world of pockets of bigotry.
I was not always liked or respected. Some people sampled my offerings and left without a comment not even to briefly acknowledge that they’d liked or dislike what I had provided. Caribbeanmarvel, the describer, was always calling me a tenacious character; and would remark on my ability not to be thrown off by a man or woman’s fickle behaviour or disagreements over my ideas and methods.
Let me give you an example. Once I took a break, to read and research, so I could be better at my task but some people found a replacement. They said they had another hero. They went on to like someone else, in fact to worship someone who was freshly pressed, she was gold minted. But I forgave them and welcomed them back.
A friend said to me, “You are a sucker for punishment; and to think you are not paid for this job. All bloggers are egomaniacs, though and you are the chief among them.”
So mourners, this journey of blogging to a better tomorrow is a hard one with no thanks. I believed that by getting to know each other through blogs and other social media, we will lead others to the promised land of a globalised world, where mankind equitably share all the earth’s fruits.
I have gone to another place, but I hope you will draw from my experiences. To help you, I’ve summarised ten simple rules that helped me. Store them on your iPad, or any tablet of your choice.
Image via CrunchBase
- Remember that as a blogger you are both a follower and a leader. No other positions are more important than these.
- Do not believe that your opinions are supreme. No one has all the answers, no one is always right.
- Do not misuse anyone’s intellectual property.
- Take time off from your blog- to read, research and explore.
- Honour fellow-bloggers and visitors to your site. Reply to their comments and say ‘thank you’. By doing so, others will respect you and your days as a blogger will be rewarded.
- Be honest in your criticisms though sensitive enough not to kill another blogger’s spirit.
- Be faithful to those who you follow and your followers. Visit their blogs, comment on their posts. Don’t ignore them for months while you enjoy yourself with other bloggers. Provide good quality, well edited posts for your followers.
- Do not steal other people’s posts; re-blog, if permitted.
- Do not purposely misquote numbers, facts, and figures.
- Do not covet your fellow blogger’s freshly pressed award; his or her trifecta winner’s logo or any other blog challenge trophy ; his or her sense of humour or turn of phrase.
Your beloved departed is resting in peace and will rise in glory, Amen!
P.S. written for Daily Prompt: Dearly Departed.
Letting Go
From 20 feet away, I saw her looking out her front window, as usual, with folded arms resting on the sill and cradling her head.
I exhaled. Ella was asleep, so I moved stealthily. “Good morning“, I heard as soon as I was within her line of vision.
“Good morning Miss Ella,” I replied muttering under my breath, “you have inbuilt motion sensors?”
“What?” she asked.
“I was saying, ‘everyone is fine at home, thank you.” I’d planned to add that to my greeting since she normally asked about my family and while I was replying, she would search for another topic to lengthen our conversation.
I quickened my pace hoping to be out of earshot before her 89-year old brain could react but she was fast.
“Not going to church this morning? I will tell the priest you are off to do the devil’s business,” she chuckled.
“No service this morning,” I replied. Time was ticking on my full schedule while her only chore was trapping passers-by into long conversations but I couldn’t ignore a lonely old lady dressed in her Sunday best on Tuesday.
“Senility isn’t wrecking my brain; it’s loneliness,” she said “old age is a bitch. Eat, drink, look out this window; that’s who I’ve become. No one to chat with, unless someone like you pass by and spare a minute with an old bird.”
My head dropped in shame. I left an hour later, my soul at peace but my schedule wrecked and my heart broken from looking deep inside old age.
She’d spoken with pride about being able, as a single mother, to pay her children’s fare so they could migrate to jobs in London during the 1950’s. “They send me money now but I need to feel loved,” she’d said, her eyes filled with tears.
“Was I right to let them go? ”
P.S. I wrote this partially true story for the trifecta which challenged writers to produce a story of between 33 and 333 words using the word ‘bitch’ defined as “something that is extremely difficult, objectionable, or unpleasant”.
Should I have cut my story at three paragraphs before the end and add more words conveying feeling earlier? Or would that be over done? Please tell me?
marvalously 