Botswana-Africa's gem

 I have only visited Botswana once, ( Joan, my views: Search results for botswana (joan-myviews.blogspot.com), but the burning desire to return and explore more, increases daily. 

Yes, you guessed right! It was the animals that got me there of course, for, it has Africa's highest concentration of elephants and all the other wonderful animals you would want to see.

Since that initial visit, I have made it my business to learn more about the paradise I got a taste of, which has a population about the same size as my homeland Jamacia, and got its independence in 1966, just four years after we did, but importantly, remains Africa's most stable democracy and its safest country.

 As a proud descendent of the Mandingo Tribe from the Ivory Coast  (my grandmother told me and DNA confirmed it) , since I 'discovered' Africa,  I have wanted to tour the continent widely, but the Ivory Coast is not on my bucket list for that very reason, Safety.

Yes, the former colonial masters so divided the tribes of Africa  and planted such hatred among them, that many countries have been torn by civil war and the modern power-hungry leaders so evil, that they are unwilling to help their population ‘get over it' and move one.

But thank heavens, Rwanda did and is today a very stable and progressive country and one I would love to visit.

Oh boy, how I would also love to visit Mali which had one of history’s greatest and most intellectually-developed empires, but their constant infighting makes it impossible. 

And while I am at it, I shall complain about my great disappointment when I was going to Kenya in 2018, (Joan, my views: KENYA: THE MOST AMAZING OUTDOORS (joan-myviews.blogspot.com), at not being able to visit Ethiopia. For I actually bought an air ticket and obtained a visa to visit that next door country, but guess what, they started a civil war there😡. 

So not only did I lose my air fare (which was non-refundable) but also my visa fee, (US $50), as it is one of the few African countries which does not allow Jamaicans visa-free entry!

It all comes back to security when I travel these days, so my ancestral homeland Ivory Coast, has to sit on the back burner for a while!

 For in 2010, they had another civil war which killed thousands and left over half million people displaced and they have not been able to get their act together yet.

And talking about  wars, I consider a large segment of the Jewish population to be extremely evil because of their support for what the Netanyahu government is doing to the Palestinians, especially the women and children. 

However, what is happening in Gaza is nothing in comparison to what is happening in Somalia, where power hungry blacks have murdered an estimated million of their fellow Africans and today some four million people are said to be on the verge of famine.

What is especially disheartening too is how most of the world, especially the black world, is ignoring what is happening there.😨

But now, I want to return to Botswana, my model country.

Yes, that country is rich in diamonds, but what is outstandings and unusual,  is how  the government has always used its resources to develop its people.

So, it not only has low debt and Africa’s highest credit rating, but also, although 70% of the country is dessert, it gives its citizens free land, free healthcare and free education! In addition, university students receive $154 in allowances monthly.

Incidentally, it is the desert there which has created Botswana’s most important UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Okavango Delta located in the Kalahari Desert. This is a vast inland delta formed with the Okavango River. 

Yup, Botswana is so far up my bucket list, that its bursting.

 

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Essay 4; Jamaicans are "world builders"

I do not think there is a place on earth you can travel to and not find a Jamaican! And sometimes we turn up in the most unusual places. In fact, my own brother even took his family on a tour of the pyramids of Egypt only to end up with an Arabic-speaking tour guide from Montego Bay, Jamaica!

For years politicians of all stripes have complained that a problem the country faces is that when taxpayers subsidize the tertiary education of many Jamaican professions, the country ends up losing as those professional immediately migrate and do not give anything back to their country. Yes that is a real problem but could the penchant for Jamaicans to migrate be in our DNA? I am no scientist but ask the question due to the conditions under which the migratory habit of generations of Jamaicans seem to have arisen.

As far as I can discern, the necessity to migrate came with the  abolition of slavery in 1834. For the freed slaves had no money, no jobs, no land, no food and in many instances, not even family in the country to which they had been forcefully transported

. Things were so bad for the freed slaves that in order to avoid starving to death some had to even return to their wicked slave masters and request that they employ them just to get  food to eat.

It was the lucky ones  therefore who could find a little boat or some means of migrating to anywhere where they as free people they could earn a living.

Monument in Cuba

In the late 1800's to the turn of the century, Cuba was recognized as the powerhouse of the region due to the industries that were flourishing based on "king sugar." News  of their need for labour spread rapidly throughout Jamaica and indeed other Caribbean islands which also faced a similar dilemma as we did, and migration to Cuba started in droves. So today when you go to the southern provinces like Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo and Holguin, the descends of Jamaican and other former West Indian people are everywhere.

Fortunately too, in 1903 the construction of the Panama Canal begun and despite the fact that the project was extremely dangerous and many people lost their lives (including my maternal grandfather), Panama became a major drawing card for Jamaicans in need of employment. When  the project was completed and opened in 1914, there was still a need for workers there as the economy was booming, so instead of returning home, thousands of Jamaicans remained there, most settling in the city of Colon.

However others decided to go north in search of economic opportunities, as the Jamaican economy was still struggling and blacks had very little means of survival. Many went to Honduras, and even more went to Nicaragua, settling on the Caribbean coast and naming their new home Bluefields after a seaside village on south western side of  Jamaica.

Inside Irazu volcano, Costa Rica

Still others moved to the province of Limon on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and today the descendants  of Jamaicans play an important role in that country, even producing  the very first black congresswoman in Costa Rica , a lady who was always proud to boast about her Jamaican roots.

During the 30's and 40's because of the massive toll the two major  European wars took on British men, the then colonial master England, was forced to open its doors to workers from their colonies to do their menial and labour intensive jobs. Jamaicans therefore  migrated to Britain in hordes up to the  late 1960's when the USA and Canada also opened their doors and the trek to those countries there took off in earnest.

Before the 70's, the majority of  Jamaican who left home, were in search of economic opportunities and their remittances to assist their family left back at home became critical to the economy.

The great migration that took place between 1972-1980 harmed the Jamaican economy unlike the net effect of previous migrations. This was because it was widely perceived that the then government was introducing communism and taking Jamaica into the USSR/Cuban sphere of influence. So the  better off Jamaicans and professionals voted with their feet. They went mainly to the USA and Canada and it set the Jamaican economy back for decades, as not only did they take their capital with them but also their skills. The Jamaican economy is still struggling to recover from that outflow!

While there have been periods when Jamaican migrated in droves, individual Jamaicans have always on their own steam, found other places to go, even as far as cold Alaska in search of opportunities. However the overall picture is that by being a migratory people,  we have contributed a great deal to the building of just about every nation in the world including our own and migration remains strong in our DNA.