Sorry, me eye water dunning!

Well, my friend, your regular columnist, decided to sit out this week. Before he could finish crying for SVG last week, he saw the front page of the Vincentian and before even attempting to read it, he started crying even more. He put the paper away, fearing that his eye water will dry up. Well, let me first of all introduce myself. My name is Nansi Rain. Yes, you heard that correctly, Mr Nansi Rain! Hi, stop right there; cut that out! I am not that Nansi, the trickster that came out of West Africa, the one who often takes the shape of a spider. So, forget that! I am also not like the others you call ‘Nanci,’ who used to trick you every day and continue to do so.{{more}}

I am one of the sons of Nature, having been given major work to do. I have to admit that we went too far last Christmas Eve night. But, let us talk about this and ensure that it doesn’t happen again. I am one of the players in the environment and work along with others. You people take us for granted. You feel you can do what you want with the environment, often raping it for your own personal greed. You claim to be modern and educated. I really don’t know what that means, because you don’t act so. If you had any sense at all, you will know that your activities are only upsetting the balance that Mother Nature had carefully put in place. Let me also acknowledge that there are some sensible ones among you in your part of the ecosphere, or, as you would sometimes say, in your part of the woods. I don’t know why the reference to nature, for one of your sins is that you have been destroying the woods, all as part of your war against nature. You somehow feel that the more you uproot the forests and put down your multi-storey dwellings, the more you are demonstrating how advanced you are.

Well, I am letting you know. You have been cutting trees in the forest to plant all sorts of things, some of them very strange to me. You leave the trees where you cut them. Many of you feel that there is something wrong burning them to make coals. This is a modern era you say. When I fall, some of them are carried down the streams and block my natural flow. When this happens, anything can play and I lose control. You should know this, but you just seem to despise Mother Nature’s work, as though her very existence is an insult to you.

You have another problem. Your ideas, your education used to be packaged and sent from England, which you used to call your Mother Country. When I hear this I sometimes have to laugh, as though she gave birth to you. We know that you existed long before she took control of everything you, had. Now, your new God is from across the seas, from those who tell you, that you live in their backyard. I don’t know about you, but some of their thinking is utterly atrocious. They have been facing severe environmental problems, but they see it as an act of God. I am not even sure who their God is. They laugh when you tell them about climate change and their role in it. They need to know that as they exploit everything around them for monetary and material ends they are, even more than you, doing irreparable damage to the environment and destroying too the balance that my Mother Nature had carefully put in place.

But this message or conversation is about you. Do you also think that it was the work of God or of Nature, as some like to put it? We are hoping that you studied and reflected on what happened on that fateful evening and ensure that you do not create the kind of atmosphere to make something like that happen again. Let me also beg you not to see that as being of any political benefit. You might have noticed a pattern that you perhaps never saw before. You see how I am falling. A few short slight showers! And this has been going on for some time. Have you ever seen weather like this? I am giving you time to prepare yourself for my arrival. Once you put things in place, we will all be happy. I know that things as they are have been a strain on some of you. Water is becoming a problem and I know that there is what you call water rationing. You will soon be rid of this, once you allow me to fall without creating any blocks to my natural flow.

While I am concerned about any restrictions on what I am supposed to do, especially providing vital nutrients for plant growth, I have to be concerned about other things, because we children of Mother Nature act as a team. We have provided you with the means of feeding yourselves, but again you feel we ‘out-a-date’ and you prefer to eat your fast foods, as you call them and to go into the super-market and buy all the processed food. In doing so, not only are you not producing what you eat, but you are, by the same token, eating what you don’t produce. This is a hideous situation to be in.

We monitor things very carefully from here and we know how much money you send out of your country to buy these things and disregard what we give you.

So, I Man say please reflect on these things!

Dr Adrian Fraser is a social commentator and historian.