A true friend for life🙏.

The Miracle of Friendship by Mayo Angelo.

A Miracle called friendship Dwells within the heart

You don't know how it happens Or when it gets it's start

But the happiness it brings you, Always gives a special lift

Then you realize that friendship Is one of God's most precious gifts!

It was my special blessing and precious gift from God to have had Ann Marie Hinds as a friend, for as I often tell everyone, she virtually saved my life.

So while her death from her point of view was a great relief, for me, her friends and family, it's a great loss. 

 For if there was ever an irreplaceable human being, it was my late Guyanese sister Ann-Marie Hinds nee Defreitas.

I first met Ann Marie around thirty five years ago when she and her young children accompanied her then husband Bill, who was transferred from Guyana to Jamaica, to head a division of the corporate office of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. (CIBC).

Ann Marie with one of her twin boys, Gino and I in November 2024.

 They had three very young children (including twin boys) but when the British High Commission in Jamaica needed someone who spoke English and Portuguese urgently to fulfill a temporary assignment,  they prevailed on her to assist them as she had lived for years in Brazil.

 However what should have been a temporary role there soon evolved into permanent employment and she spent quite a few years working there and living very nearby.

With Shadrach (partly hidden) on same occasion.

The Miracle of her importance to our lives was played out in July 1995 when Thor, my only son, who had just fathered his son Shadrach, was murdered.

If you have never trod that path, the effect of such an occurrence can never be understood.

For during that agonizing period of tragedy and shock, neither Michelle (Shadrach mom) nor I were capable of doing anything.

 And I mean anything, much less tending to the needs of a six week old baby.

But it was during period that God's special gift to us stepped in. For every afternoon after work, Ann Marie would drive past her own home without stopping, to head straight to our home, to bathe, feed and tend to our new born.

 I don't recall how many days or weeks she continued that absolutely essential act of mercy and goodness, but the blessings of having such a friend when we most needed it, can never be forgotten or repaid.

We were so happy to see her on Thanksgiving Day 2024.

As the years went by and some memories of that tragedy faded, our friendship grew stronger and when she returned to Guyana, I went and spent three wonderful weeks there with her.

But I have never been able to come even close to repaying her for the critical, life-saving role she played in our lives when we needed it most.

It was therefore especially devastating when around eighteen months ago, she visited Florida and during her time here, got ill and and was diagnosed with cancer. 

Guyana has a very advanced cancer treatment center, so she returned home and had to have two operations and undergo painful and debilitating bouts of chemotherapy.

 I was however overjoyed when she called in November 2024 to say she was feeling a little better, so was coming to Florida to again see her family and spend a few weeks with me.

It was during that visit that she started to feel unbearable pain and when we went to the ER, they discovered that the evil disease had gone into her liver. 

But the woman of courage that Ann Marie was, decided to accept her pending death, for as far as she was concerned, the treatment was worse than the disease.

(L) granddaughter Rayane, (R) daughter Anjeta.

If you have ever felt you owed someone your life but are unable to do anything to help them in their time of suffering, you may begin to understand how inadequate and useless I have felt during the months of her intensive pain and suffering.

For the agonizing pain she bravely confronted for months on end, was excruciating and heart-wrenching.

Yes, now her pain is finally gone but the impact she had on our lives will forever live on in our hearts.

Till we meet again, walk good mi fren.😥.

Being quarantined is no fun

As a joke, on the 21st February 2020, I put a post on my Facebook page asking if anyone wanted a free cruise. I was absolutely shocked by the number of persons who replied yes, considering that the horror stories about people being quarantined on cruises ships and ports of call refusing them landing, had started to surface.

I don't think anyone in the world loves cruising more than I do. Or just travelling for that matter.

I got my first cruise when I was 14 years old and was so excited about the experience that the first job I applied for on leaving high school was to work on a cruise ship.

Thank god I never got the job for I learnt later in life that working on these floating hotels is no fun.

For the workers seem to work almost 24 hours per day. Also, they live in cramped quarters on the bottom of the ship and have to be nice to all sorts of assholes.

Not getting that job was probably my best luck in life for apart from the horrible conditions under which cruise ship employees work, lots of them pick up dangerous viruses.

But back to quarantines.

I am claustrophobic so being quarantined is a fate worse than death.

 I have been quarantined twice and thank god it was for short periods of time.

The first time was when I developed a fever after returning to Jamaica from vacation in Guyana. On that trip I did the exciting trek through the forest by minibus over to Brazil.

When I went to the doctor after developing a fever shortly after returning home, it created panic with the damn doctor who swore I had developed dengue, malaria or yellow fever, mosquito borne diseases that were no longer in Jamaica at that time.

That's when she said I must be quarantined in a hospital, public or private.

At least I could go on my balcony

 I had never heard about the process before so called a friend who was a GP, to find out what would happen if I refused to turn myself in. He soberly advised me that they would send the police to bodily take  me in. That was enough for me so reluctantly I checked into a private hospital and was confined to bed under a mosquito net for three whole boring days.

It turned out to be a colossal waste of money as nothing was  wrong with me except some ordinary damn flu.

The second time was in 2018 when a group of us went on a cruise of the Canal zone. The  night before we arrived in Old Cartagena, Colombia,  I had gone to watch the show on board and had to comment how a man behind me was coughing non stop.

The next day we took a tour of the old city and after we had finished  visiting the square, I stood on the sidewalk waiting on my friends when Bam, I collapsed on the sidewalk. nearly bashing my head on raised section. Maybe I was temporarily out as when I came to, a crowd was standing over me with everyone offering to help. My friends secured my belongings and put me in a taxi back to the boat.

I had not been feeling ill but when  they took my temperature it was 104 degrees. Long story short, I was then quarantined to my room for two days. It was so boring. I did not really want to come off in Limon, Costa Rica as I have visited it quite a few times, neither did I want to come off in Colon as I had also visited that town once and did not like it.

That's all I could see of Colon from my balcony

But being confined to my room while everyone else was out having fun was a killer.
I later learnt that 40% of the passengers on that ship had gotten the flu and some even had to be airlifted off.

I recall all this as I listen to the horror  stories of people being quarantined on cruise ships for up to fourteen days during  this corona outbreak and I sympathize with them as I think I  would die if I was confined to a cabin for such long periods!

 I really love taking cruises and was looking forward to doing the river cruise down the Rhine later this year, stopping in Northern and central Europe on the way, but I think I might just give cruises a break for a while.

For while cruises are fun, quarantine is hell.

Kidnapped!

Now I know what it feels like to be kidnapped and imprisoned! Well maybe that's a bit dramatic since my experience was nothing like that poor Colombian senator who was kidnapped and held by rebels for some seven years during which period she had a child (no doubt the result of rape) for one of the rebels.

So by comparison, my experience was by no means as frightening but it was a form of kidnapping and imprisonment anyway.

It started so simply, for after having a bout of fever and shivers on Friday 25th May and taking the  usual home remedies and having the fever go away, to my  surprise after a great day of riding to Lovers leap in St. Elizabeth from Spur Tree Hill in Manchester on Sunday, when I returned the fever suddenly reoccurred accompanied by chills.

View from Lovers Leap

By Monday morning the stubborn fever was still around, so I went to my doctor at Medical Associates Hospital  to get some antibiotics. Problem was, my doctor was sick so they sent me to his colleague Charmaine Webb who I had  known many years ago. When she heard about the fever going and coming, for some reason she looked up symptoms for malaria and asked me if I had been to any countries where they have the disease.

I mentioned that I had been in south America but had been back for over three weeks but that seems to have set off a panic as according to them Brazil has a serious malaria epidemic.That's when it was referred to a Dr. Kildere Donaldson who is supposed to be an expert in contagious diseases and he insisted that I had to be admitted for observation and the matter reported to the public health authorities for malaria had been eradicated from Jamaica and they were paranoid that it not return to the shores. I had to be admitted immediately they said so the necessary tests could be done.

 Never having encountered a situation like this, I called to get legal advice but was told that my contact had no knowledge of public health law. So I called a friend had been the medical officer of health for St. Ann. His sober advice was that I go into hospital for observation and testing for  if I didn't, the public health authorities could send the police for me and take me into the public hospital  to be quarantined and tested.

 Well that was enough to get me to go back and be admitted to Medical Associates where they put me in a private room, under a mosquito net and all! However, the  net was open at the top so if any mosquitoes were around, they could have flown in and out in wild abandon, so happily, since I am terribly claustrophobic, I quickly abandoned it!!!

For two days, I was put through every possible test and I think they took away at  least half of my blood and would you believe I never even had a temperature or chills for the entire time I was there . 

Anyway, the hospital is not bad at all. The food good and all the staff nice but there is no place like home. So since I had absolutely no more symptoms, I was allowed to go home although the test results from the government lab were not yet not returned. (I hear those bureaucrats down there can take up to 2 weeks to send back the results!)

What a relief all around. No more confinement and no more topless mosquito nets.

One thing I know though, the next time I go south, I will be taking every single vaccine available, from yellow fever to dengue, for I will never be confined again.