'poor iguana'

The fauna in Maraval has sadly been reduced by one. Our dog is still the hunter, one owl, one manicou, many zandolees and yesterday one young iguana. Maya, the bull mastiff, loves the hunt as much as she loves Crix. As much as we try our best to support the flora and fauna nature just takes control and the outcome is not always pleasant. We see nature at its finest in recent events in our neck of the woods. As horrific the end result is we can only look on in awe as to the power the natural world has. Poor iguana!

It will all be over soon. The killer hurricane will be gone and we can only hope that 'September remember' applies. The territories that were in fact impacted will take a long time to recover, many of them very dependent on the tourism industry and with the season approaching it does not augur well for them. Stories coming out of St Martin are not good. The looting by gangs of armed individuals sends a very negative image to potential tourists who probably thought that the island was inhabited by very happy people. I guess the truth emerges when you are under stress. Looking at our own capital city after 30 mins of rain says that we are at no time ready to deal with even a half of a disaster. The horror that would emerge if a natural disaster occurred in this land of fun and sun would be unprecedented.

The polls are in, dealing with the confidence and popularity of the current administration. Things don't look all that good for the PMOTT. The national budget will be presented to the Parliament soon, sometime this month, maybe. Why maybe? well, because the presentation of the National Budget is a top secret issue. No one is to know when the Budget will be presented. This is in case people take advantage of subsidized fuel prices and go and fill their fuel tanks hoping to beat the increase in the price of fuel, or buy extra packs of smokes or extra bottles of rum before the taxes are raised. Can you imagine that in 2017 the date of the Budget presentation is a secret. We plebs are not bright enough to be able to fathom the state of our economy and therefore it is not necessary for us to know anything. That is the purview of the Minister of Finance and the PMOTT.

I see that the Opposition had its Congress today. I would have thought that great insight into the future of this country would have been proffered by the LOTO. According to the TV news tonight this did not happen. There was no new insight into how the current opposition would do things differently if elected tomorrow. The highlight was basically an issue of corruption by the current administration. Not a single new idea on how to turn this battered economy around, a grasp on dealing with crime, governance, the Constitution, the future of the country. A huge disappointment! Sometimes I feel like poor Barbuda, hit by one and the only thing I can look forward to is another lash by the other.

I always have hope for our country. Any people who can create their own music, a musical instrument, a world class festival, produce the finest writers, world class sportsmen and women, live in an eco system as diverse as ours, a religious tolerance unprecedented and as diverse a people as we are will survive. We need to rid ourselves of the politics of the day. 1956 is not 2017!

Good luck people and good night!