stories from barbados
inside - My wife gave me a Christmas Card with a poem she wrote written inside
that she composed. It has reinforced my love for her and inspired me
to keep on loving her with my all.
outside - The government has decided to build a Landfill on our East Coast
on a location once chosen for a National Park. I am
afraid this decision my cause serious environmental
repercussions and create a health hazard for us, especially
my children.
future - Unless we do something about the way we treat our
environment now I see life the next 100 years as one
without trees and we have to live in space like
Star Trek.
John L. Noel <noel_j@bet.com.bb>
St. James, BARBADOS - Friday, December 20, 1996 at 15:07:57 (GMT)
inside - friendships, both lost and gained. one lost through
my own fault, i suppose, which has reminded me to live
by the principles i have set for myself. in the other
case, i am reminded that wherever in the world i go, people
are much the same despite differences in cultural backgrounds.
of course we all suspect this anyway, but it is pleasant to
have the experience, so that we don't get caught generalising
from the negative experiences we may have with some people of
different cultures. because the similarities between
people are greater than cultural differences, i have
seen that lasting friendships can be formed like bridges
across cultural divides.
outside - the thought of the scale of the suffering of rwandan refugees
in central africa. the population of my country is only 260,000,
and it is difficult to contemplate the movement of twice
this number of people across the rwandan border from
zaire in one week. yet this is only approximate half
the number of displaced people from rwanda alone.
i can only imagine the hardships they have endured
and going "home" does not ensure that the situation
will be any better. i hope there is a special place
hell, if it exists, for the leaders who planned and
executed the genocide of the one million rwandans
killed in three months in 1994, who led their followers
into zaire and tanzania, and then tried their best to
prevent repatriation of over a million people.
to stop
future - this would be as difficult to imagine as it would have
been for someone a hundred years ago to imagine what life
is like today. the pc, for example, is maybe 30
years old, and look at how far they have gone in
that time. things might be far different from what
i could imagine given that new technologies have the
capacity to change the way we relate to each other
and to our environment.
lyndon waterman <lyndon@uwichill.edu.bb>
barbados - Tuesday, December 17, 1996 at 18:25:31 (GMT)
go back to VWO diary of stories.