DIANE PHILLIPS: How easy it is to forget how lucky we really are

Jade Shovlin, whose wish is to swim with the pigs in The Bahamas before she dies. (Main photo by Jeff Todd)

As of Friday, June 12, 2020

Diane Phillips

We are so spoiled. So utterly, utterly spoiled and fortunate and lucky beyond our wildest dreams. We live in The Bahamas. We suffer through a pandemic not in smog-riddled Shouguang, China or snowbound Iceland or in a ghetto where you’re damned if you do and just as damned if you don’t join a gang. And what do we do? We complain. We gripe about everything – how long the lines are at NIB, how slow the bank is to give us an answer, how high the cost of power is, not to mention the price of crossing the bridge to PI, one of the highest per linear foot pieces of concrete in the world. When it comes to complaining, we have mastered the art.

In Yiddish, all that complaining is called kvetching. It’s one of those words that sound as ugly as the act it describes is. Like rubbing salt on a wound knowing full well it will not cure a blessed thing and can only make it worse.

Still we complain because we have earned a tertiary level degree in how to complain.

And then we hear a story like this – a dying woman, only 21 years old, beautiful, a trained caregiver in the UK, is diagnosed with oesophagus cancer. It is terminal. There is no known cure. With chemotherapy, she is given 12-18 months to live. Her family is heartbroken. So is her boyfriend. She has one wish – to go to The Bahamas and swim with the pigs before she dies.

Jade, second left, with her family in happier times.

Her name is Jade Shovlin and the world is helping to make Jade’s wish come true. It started with Peter Nicholson, a Canadian businessman, philanthropist and condo owner at Grand Isle Villas in Exuma, and Jeff Todd, who works with him. Nicholson, who commissioned the first documentary on the swimming pigs, and Todd, who wrote the book Pigs in Paradise, independently saw the reference to swimming pigs in a UK newspaper in the small town where Jade lives.

Nicholson, who has been in Exuma with his four youngest children since the pandemic lockdown began, and Todd, who has been weathering the COVID-19 storm in Canada with his wife and twin girls, both knew they had to act and act fast.

Nicholson offered the woman and her family a free stay at Grand Isle Villas as soon as her chemo treatment and Bahamas protocols allowed. He also offered a boat ride to Pig Beach and nearby snorkelling, creating memories that would live for the dying woman’s family forever. Todd said he would write about the cause.

Meantime, an online fundraiser started in late May. By yesterday, 517 people had donated. The goal is to raise about $25,000. That’s 500-plus people who want to help Jade get to The Bahamas and into the waters recognised as the most beautiful and breathtaking in the world.

Let Jade’s story remind us how special the place is where we live. For the outside world, The Bahamas continues to conjure emotions of excitement, ripples of wonder, a sense of magic and exotic romance.

So unless you are prepared to do something to make it better, stop the kvetching. Look outside your window, instead, take a deep breath and please, for God’s sake, smile. You live in The Bahamas.

• The fundraiser can be found at https://www.facebook.com/donate/688115658632090/

Yamacraw goes naked

Many years ago, maybe as many as 12 or 15, casuarina trees lined a section of West Bay Street, their branches reaching from both sides to unite in the middle, forming a natural canopy overhead.

Unfortunately for the casuarinas, which are an invasive species, they were destroyed, cut down, taken out, removed bit by bit as time and budgets allowed.

Now, the same has happened along Yamacraw Hill Road and the nakedness is startling.

Removing invasive species is justifiable in several ways. Casuarina roots which are amazingly industrious, spread and undermine roads, forcing bulges in the tarmac and creating a need for repairs. Invasive species also generate chemicals that can endanger other plants and because of the wide umbrella spread of the casuarina, it can deprive smaller species from the light they need in order to grow and germinate. The larger trees also had the potential to damage utility poles in a storm.

All that aside, the casuarina in the right place and kept to the right size has a place as a strong windbreak. Given the potential of climate change, it is not out of the realm of possibility that it could be used in designated spaces to break the waves, wind and other offshore onslaught, including debris from taking its greatest toll on land. The trimmed casuarina is often used as a windbreak around tennis courts for that very reason – because it is a great defender from the wind.

More importantly, with the latest de-treeing, inquiring minds want to know: Is there a plan for replanting with an indigenous species? For the dozens of people who (during normal days) enjoy Yamacraw beaches and sidewalk in the late afternoon, early evenings and on weekends, the trees provided shade, offered breeze and kept temperatures to a tolerable level even in summer. They also served as a stop sign so cars did not drive right off the edge and into the water where the road and the sea are so close together. Let’s hope the plan to replant gets as much attention as the effort to remove and if anyone needs a hand, happy to help put together a team of volunteers.

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Porcupine 4 years, 4 months ago

Mrs. Phillips,

For those of us, and I suspect you are one of us, who have enough to eat, whose bills will be paid each month, and are relatively healthy, yes, we do have much to be thankful for. However, I believe that all it takes for evil to persist is for good people to remain silent. Presently, the world is in tatters for most people. Yes, I said most people. I have been complaining about some of the things you mention for many years now. As a student of history, I am trying to find one instance where things changed or the better, without complaining. That would be called magic, yes? Please don't forget the elevated position you occupy has nothing to do with "where' you live. Yes, The Bahamas is a great place to live provided you have the essential human needs available to you. Nearly every country on earth has people who are the same as you: well fed, clothed, housed, taken care of, so to speak. Yet, the numbers bear out a huge percentage of populations, the Bahamas included, where people are food insecure, home insecure, job insecure and unable to find the time to feel as thankful as you do Mrs. Phillips. What I am suggesting is that there are other aspects that must be taken into account besides, where you reside that sets the conditions for "being thankful" Yes, there are many worse off, and many better off. Most people in The Bahamas, according to the statistics I read, suggest you are not representative of "most" people. There are rich and well-to-do in every country. There are poor in every country. If your assessment of reasons to be thankful are based on where one lives, you are bordering on delusional. The Bahamas does not treat poverty seriously. I often say that we have more in common with our brothers and sisters in Haiti, than we do with our own political and business leaders. Is this not true in what we are faced with each and every day? White privilege may also contribute to the inability to see what is staring most of us in the face each day. This is allowed to be talked about now, right? Or, is this simple fact not pertinent here? Only our neighbor to the north can be called out on the realities of race as figures into the ability to "be thankful". No Mrs. Philips, I feel it is important to be thankful, but just as important to complain against every injustice done to another human being. What are the chances that every person in your story above is white. Why is philanthropy held up as some good thing, when your own government can't even keep its people living in a modicum of decency?

Porcupine 4 years, 4 months ago

What the world is crying out for, Mrs. Philips, is change. Change in how we treat each other, and how we treat the earth. This much is clear Mrs. Philips, we are not, and have not been succeeding in acting in a caring and Christian manner. While I am sure that the woman whom the doctors say does not have long to live will be appreciative of the ability to swim with the pigs, what about the thousands, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of Bahamians who are completely and totally insecure and whose children are at risk of starvation right here in Pig Paradise? Here is what change may look like Mrs. Philips. That our newspapers would be written by and edited by people who have some connection with the average person. Or, that our representatives would at some point begin to speak out and act in favor of the majority of their constituents, instead of the well-groomed and well dressed business people and those of the right color. We act as if we are somehow different from our neighbor to the north. Are we? Really? Mrs. Philips, we need a radical revolution of values. Can you acknowledge this, or not? Not small incremental change, by definition. A revolution means an awful lot of "out with the old ways". These are the same ways which we are currently championing. The idea that white rich people can make a difference in our lives, while our government gets a free hand in whom they "help". But, back to Christianity for a moment. Besides words, what evidence, according to the scriptures, can you show me that would suggest for even a moment that we here in The Bahamas get even an iota of what Christianity actually means and stands for? Our economic outcomes? Our treatment of the poor? Our treatment of the mentally ill? Our treatment of our environment? We need to quit making excuses for our anti-Christian ways. It gets old and tiring listening to these yappers talking about god, while checking their bank account each day, and running around with their sweethearts. Isn't it just a little bit nauseating, Mrs. Philips?

Porcupine 4 years, 4 months ago

As for casuarinas around tennis courts. Sorry, but they don't stay in one place. They are called an exotic invasive for a reason. They provide little protection from hurricanes. Their root systems are too shallow. A quick look at any of our family islands will show you the thousands of overturned casuarinas caused only by the rising water at our shoreline, no storms needed. Where are all the casuarinas in Abaco right now? They are underwater offshore pulverizing our reef. You do read the Tribune, don't you? When was the last time you snorkeled on our reefs? Yes, casuarinas provide shade and a sweet sound for us humans. However, they are terrible for our flora and fauna, and they do not do what you are claiming. Yes, I have spent a lot of time studying this issue. You are completely wrong, except on your defence of tennis courts. Long live tennis courts. Especially since we cannot use our wonderful education and reasoning skills to imagine one other way of keeping our precious little ball from getting blown away in the wind. A revolution of our mindset means thinking anew. Adults are simply unable to do this. We are brainwashed. That's why we must focus on our youth. I hope they don't forget about us when they finally start to "get it".

Porcupine 4 years, 4 months ago

So, "We are so spoiled", Mrs. Philips opens her screed. Can she provide names for these many spoiled, oh so spoiled, Bahamians? Is this paper only read by a handful of spoiled people? Or, do you really think most Bahamians are spoiled? Seriously! Sorry to be hard on you Mrs. Philips, but can we honestly not see WHAT needs to be changed? Just out outlook, hey?