The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune

Your editorial today, 30 January 2019, on the topic of run down Nassau and downtown is apropos. 

If Charles Darwin has any credibility, then we must accept that humans in particular, adapt to changing environments. I think that Bahamians and more so those living in the capital, have evolved and adapted to living in the midst of filth. At least the larger percentage of us have.

 Although it is not downtown, as a regular Eastern District commuter, I pass what once was the front wall of the former iconic Montagu Beach Hotel. The property has been sold off in lots and thereupon has developed several new and prestigious professional office buildings, which are maintained in beautiful condition. But immediately east/south of Higgs & Johnson, one hits the ghetto-like nasty wall with its faded and dirty original colouring of pink bottoms and sailor-white top wall.

On a really bad day as today one also has the torn remnants of a “Junior Junkanoo” banner, no longer stretched across the road, but now hanging in several pieces above the traffic line. The wall continues after the traffic light, to what appears to be a park, maintained by several local businesses, including I believe, the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China. The park is indeed maintained well, but, oh my God, the wall is just as dirty and nasty as the section to the north.

Huge money was spent by someone recently on the occasion of the Best of the Best Sailing Regatta, which included a large number of international sailors, from what is known as the Start Sailors League. Now, the Bahamians at the event may well have evolved to accept looking at nasty, but I have little doubt that the foreigners have not. Only the Lord knows what they must think of the Bahamian Condition. And I believe the Susan G. Komen Marathon either starts, ends, or passes through here each year. Another international sporting event sponsored by the Sunshine Group of Companies, that draws huge numbers of participants from beyond our shores. They will not be oblivious, like we are, and will see the nastiness for what it is.

Now if you take your eyes off the wall before it ends and look out to the sea, you will again see nasty, like you have never seen it before. Either the remnant spillage from an overloaded garbage skip, or the skip itself, intended for the fish and conch vendors to dispose of their waste, including empty conch shells, but the public has assumed that this is the dump for them, to dispose of anything from their household garbage, to their no longer working fridge, stove, or bed mattress.

 But we are a God-Fearing People we say. What happened to the ancient adage –  “Cleanliness is next to Godliness” ?

BRUCE G RAINE

Nassau

January 30, 2018