by Sidney Sweeting, DDS
In years past, while traveling abroad I was proud to tell those who asked that I am from the Bahamas.
Then sometime in the early seventies I was with a group in Ft. Lauderdale for a football game and someone asked where we were from. When we replied they made the comment "The Bahamas, isn't that where the drugs come from?"
That was the beginning.
About four years ago a friend was visiting from Vancouver. He said that he liked the Bahamas but he wondered why large trucks are allowed to speed along Bay Street with horns in full blast. He was also surprised that cars were allowed to park wherever they could find a space, even in restricted zones. (In Vancouver they would promptly be towed away) He was also distressed about Bahamians turning a blind eye to the garbage at every turn - under the bridge, overflowing containers on Potters Cay and "Why does Government not remove the rotting boats on the docks and along the seashore?"
Just this past Christmas I was out of town but a friend was here on a cruise and decided to take a walk through town.
His comment was very telling and diplomatic "I'm sure there must be some nice areas in Nassau to see." In other words, downtown was dirty and unappealing.
When I mentioned to a taxi driver in Bermuda that I was impressed at how clean the island is, she said that she had traveled in the southern islands and she had noticed that the further south she went, the dirtier the islands were and her opinion was that the people were either lazy or had no pride, or both. Maybe it’s the heat!
A few years ago my wife and I were in Victoria and there was a concert in a park near our hotel. When we exited the hotel the next morning there was absolutely no garbage anywhere. Why do I mention this? Check out the Montagu area the morning after a function and you must wonder, as I do, if we have become a nation of pigs.
I wonder if the day will ever come when I will again be proud to tell foreigners that I am from the Bahamas.
After watching a fast food carton disappear into the bush from the window of a police car I am left with serious doubts.
