WASHINGTON, D.C., August 15, 2021—As I continue my struggle to avoid eviction because of back rent that I owe, a friend of mine in Freeport suggested that I should return to Freeport, where he said I have some “good friends” who will help me.
I lived in Freeport for 12 years before moving back to Washington, D.C., as Press, Cultural Affairs and Information Manager at the Embassy of The Bahamas in 2013, and the major problem with the suggestion made by my friend is that I developed serious medical problems in 2012 that required me to go to Miami at considerable expense on a regular basis, and the support that he mentions was not forthcoming, except for the financial assistance I received every time I had to go to Miami from my good friend R.H. Culmer, CEO of Jarol Investments Ltd. and CHANCES Games.
The bottom line is I am convinced that if I had moved back to The Bahamas when my diplomatic status was revoked after the Free National Movement (FNM) won the May 10, 2017 general elections in The Bahamas, I would be dead by now, considering the level of medical care available to Bahamians in The Bahamas. This is surely the main reason why Bahamians who can afford to do so travel to the United States and, until recently, to Cuba when they developed a serious medical condition.
Fortunately, I have been a naturalized American citizen since 1982 — one of the best decisions I made in my life, when I previously lived in D.C. for 21 years – and as a senior citizen, Medicare covers 80 percent of my medical expenses. Consequently, I receive excellent medical care from Dr. Christina Puchalski of George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates, with whom I had an appointment three weeks ago.
To give you an example of the first-rate medical care I receive, I had developed a lesion over my left eye, and during my appointment with Dr. Pulchalski, she referred me to one of her colleagues, Dr. Adam Friedman, a dermatologist, with whom I had an appointment on August 11, resulting in the lesion being surgically removed. Dr. Friedman informed me that I shall be contacted in 14 days with the results of their examination to determine if the lesion was cancerous.
Another indication of the exemplary medical care I am receiving from GW Medical Faculty Associates is that I received the first dose of the Pfizer Vaccine in February and the second dose three weeks later on March 5, two days before my birthday.
So, given the excellent medical care I am now receiving, returning to The Bahamas was not an option after my diplomatic status was revoked. However, I am fervently hoping and praying that this satanic-driven COVID-19 pandemic is history by the end of the year so that I can visit Freeport over the Christmas holiday and make a day trip to Nassau for the Banana Boat Reunion – depending, of course, on whether my current dire financial situation improves sufficiently for me do so.
Actually, I owe a great deal of thanks to former Prime Minister Perry Christie for me being in the position to make the decision to remain in the United States to receive the medical care I am now getting.
After the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) won general elections held in The Bahamas on May 7, 2012, Mr. Christie appointed me to the government’s diplomatic team at the Embassy in Washington as the Press Attaché, a title that the then newly appointed Ambassador Dr. Elliston Rahming changed to Press, Cultural Affairs and Information Manager.
In my view, Mr. Christie was an excellent Prime Minister, and as a Bahamian diplomat I was always extremely proud of the leadership panache he exhibited while interacting with members of the U.S. government.
The same cannot be said for current Prime Minister Dr. Hubert A. Minnis, who was one of the three leaders of CARICOM-member countries who defied a policy decision made by CARICOM and met with President Donald Trump on March 22, 2019, at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, to demonstrate their support for the Trump administration’s hard-line stance against the government of Venezuela, led by President Nicolás Maduro.
In addition to Prime Minister Minnis, the other Caribbean leaders at that meeting were Prime Minister Allen Chastanet of Saint Lucia; President Danilo Medina Sanchez of the Dominican Republic; Prime Minister Andrew Holness of Jamaica; and President Jovenel Moise of the Republic of Haiti.
It is worth noting that Prime Minister Chastanet was recently ousted from power in Saint Lucia and President Jovenel Moise of Haiti was recently assassinated, although his violent death had nothing to do with his decision to meet with President Trump.
The fact that Perry Christie was an exemplary Prime Minister was not surprising to me. I first got to know Mr. Christie very well when he was an outstanding track and field athlete and I was a sports reporter at The Nassau Daily Tribune; however, we developed a very strong friendship during the year (1968- 1969) I spent in London on an advanced training course in journalism at the London Evening Standard while Mr. Christie was in law school at the University of Birmingham.
I was really not a “student” in the true sense of the word, having been an accomplished journalist in The Bahamas since 1960; nonetheless, the training I received at the Evening Standard was outstanding. I spent four months as a sub-editor, four months in the social news department, and four months doing hard news assignments, during which reporters sometimes were required to call in their stories to a rewrite person in the newsroom. I consider the latter to be the most important aspect of my training at The London Evening Standard, because I learned how to quickly construct a lead paragraph mentally and call in a story employing the pyramid method of using the five W’s (WHO, WHY, WHEN, WHERE and WHAT) in the lead paragraph and providing more information on each, pyramid style, based on their importance to the story being reported.
While many students tend to struggle financially, that was not one of my problems during my stay in London. Because of Great Britain’s strong union laws, I was paid an entry-level journalist’s salary, and was able to afford a one-bedroom flat at 3 Seagrave Road, West Brompton, London, which practically every Bahamian studying in Great Britain at the time was familiar with. Indeed, on any given weekend my apartment used to be packed with students enjoying a good meal, usually cooked by some of the female students, although I am a fairly good cook. Of course, my bar was always well-stocked.
There was a period over several months when Perry used to go sailing on some weekends in the South of England on a yacht owned by the wealthy family of one of his friends, and because Birmingham is good distance from London, he would stop over for the night on his way back to university.
In retrospect, I really think that it is because of our long-standing friendship that Perry appointed me as a diplomat, knowing that I would receive the medical help that I needed after I had a hip replacement in 2012, which required me to make periodic trips to Miami when I lived in Freeport. I subsequently had a second hip replacement in 2013 during my first year at the Embassy.
So, to my friend in Freeport who suggested that I should come back home where I have “good fiends” who will assist me, as I explained in my response to your email, given my current situation that’s not an option. Besides, I have already humiliated and embarrassed myself by publicly appealing for assistance on Facebook, and the response has been woefully disappointing. But if there are some “good friends,” as you claim, who would assist me if I return to The Bahamas, I have Royal Bank of Canada account, in which my public relations clients in The Bahamas deposit money owed to me. My Royal Bank of Canada account number is: 05285-735-231-3.
