Basseterre, St Kitts, 6 August 2014 -- It has been another year of highs and lows, and again we give thanks for the privilege of life and love, family and friendship. We buoy ourselves on with the screaming delirium emanating from Glasgow, and then shake our heads at the wickedness of lotto-scammers and the folly of their victims! We change high ranking Constabulary officials with the frequency of washerwomen changing linen, and ponder how soon it will be before Goat Island becomes the Republic of C…a on Goat Island. We mourn how a river can steal twin boys, and balk at how a ‘breddah who fah head goh and come’ can manage to disarm a police and shoot two civilians… Yes, it has been quite another year!
Still, like good Pentecostal, clap-han’ church brethren dressed in head wrapped white, we ‘press along, Saints’. We press along in our efforts to build the homes we’ve left and the ones we now nurture. We press along in our missions to raise strong communities that can hold fast against the engulfment tide of the ever shrinking global village. We press along despite the economic hardships that we, both at home and in the Jamaican/Caribbean Diaspora, must sustain with scarce a wayward murmur. And we press along convinced with almost zealously indifferent understanding of the fact that ‘the hotter the battle, the sweeter the victory’!
So, as the summer becomes intense, and the only reprieve from the droughts proves to be the threat of Berthan storms, we, the members of the Jamaican Kittitian (JamKit) Association, Jamaicans and friends of Jamaicans living in the Federation of St. Kitts & Nevis, raise our voices to extend our greetings to everyone for Jamaica’s Independence Day: Wednesday, 6 August 2014. We remain grateful for the opportunity to share a tiny slice of our Jamaican realities, judiciously measured out like that precisely sliced, film-thin bit of Tastee cheese that is willingly but measuredly carved off for a visitor from the now no longer circular wheel as Easter quickly fades into the memory, or that protected crescent of lime green and yellow avocado pear that is being preserved til the bulla is brought on the weekend. That snippet that is shared with our friends and well-wishers is an honest one, which celebrates the successes and assesses the failures, notes the joys and laments the sorrows. We share the insight mindful that now in this second half of our Jamaican Independence century, we have much for which to be thankful.
Our transition into this 52nd year of Independence has not been without its challenges. From the political to the natural, we have felt the dearth of resources impact intensely on our collective and conscious mind. The insistent problem of crime has maintained a stubbornness that is unique in the region, and the public, both at home and abroad, remains hard pressed in trying to deal with it. We have continued to grapple with the fight against organised and escalating crime, continued to try to make the best of our international monetary faux pas, and to try to make sense of social norms that are changing faster than we can recognise them. Still, we press along.
We press along even amidst the transitions that have taken place in the individual spaces we inhabit. Many of us have transitioned into new stages and chapters of our lives, including into new spheres of employment, into new stages of family life (through birth, union or death), into new personal medical realities, and into new projections for self-actualisation. We pause to remember those in these realities of transition, to rejoice with those who do rejoice and to weep with those who weep. We trust that all will be able to move through their transitional phases with hope and confidence.
So, 2014 commences it closing half, and we reiterate the pleasure we take in sharing 2014 with our family here in the Federation. We reiterate our greetings to everyone for this Jamaica’s Independence Day 2014. We thank you for your continued interactions that have made our time here interesting. We continue to look forward to many more opportunities to engage with the local community, and to share in the wonderful aspects of our co-mingled lives that make us part of a larger Caribbean family. We wish everyone the most amazing remainder of the year, and look forward to greeting you again with other slices of life from the paradise we call ‘yaad’.
One Love, from the “Land, We Love.”
*************************
DISCLAIMER
This article was posted in its entirety as received by SKNVibes.com. This media house does not correct any spelling or grammatical error within press releases and commentaries. The views expressed therein are not necessarily those of SKNVibes.com, its sponsors or advertisers
