Dear Editor;
It was great to read about Martha Stewart’s visit to Eleuthera in March. The link to her blog gives a wonderful depiction of Mrs. White’s generous contribution by way of the Leon Levy Plant Preserve and it’s great that the foundation works with a local Bahamian department to carry on such an important and beautiful aspect of our culture. It’s great exposure for our island and I’m happy that Martha Stewart reported such a pleasant trip. Yet, something in one of the blog posts about “an island paradise” stood out.
Would those who informed Martha Stewart of the 70% unemployment on Eleuthera please share where they got this information?
Eleuthera has a large number of school children, retired senior citizens, self-employed, and part-time workers. They certainly aren’t included in any unemployment statics? There are also a lot of stay-at-home ‘working’ mothers, which if we had more of our children’s educational averages and family valves might be better off. 70% unemployment would put Eleuthera at a drastically higher disadvantage than any other island in the country.
I live in Green Castle, Eleuthera, and conducted a survey of my community for an upcoming book. My community has a noticeable number of 18 to 60/65 (60 is the retirement age for men, 65 for women) people who seem to choose not to work. Unemployment here is between 18%-20%. That is unofficial, and results from me and my mother sitting down over a period of time and surveying each home of this small community of people we’ve known all our lives, and having people from the community fill out a survey for the book. I find it hard to believe that with the communities of much more industrious people than in Green Castle, Eleuthera’s unemployment is 70%. Does the 2010 census reflect this? There is published documentation of one of Eleuthera’s communities where unemployment is not an issue at all. And, like everywhere else in the world, many people on Eleuthera work well beyond their retirement age.
After touring this island and seeing the types of homes here, modern cars, the hardworking people, does those statistics even make sense-let alone bear reporting to the world? Maybe the fact that she reported it “shocking” was the first indication to question its merit. It might have been shocking because what she saw was no indication of 70% unemployment. Could a fraction of the time, effort and research taken to post such wonderfully detailed reviews of the Preserve and tour of Eleuthera been extended to such important information?
In a response, the information was repeated- with the observation that everyone still has food to eat. That might imply that people are out on the seas harvesting food in droves all the time and most people have a fully sustainable crop garden in their yards. But anyone who has been to any island in The Bahamas can see that we rely heavily on imported goods, especially food. Where does such a large unemployment of people find the means to import on a weekly basis all that pork and chicken shown in the photos at the Fish Fry? Does our government shell out food and provisions that I don’t know anything about? The 30% employed must be quite generous to share their good, hard earned fortune! One might think that my being given free fish last summer is a way of life. It was the uncalculated good luck of being at the right place and time, and because there was an unusual abundance of fish that would be sold.
According to what was implied by the online comment, people should be flocking to Eleuthera, the island of freedom- where you don’t have to work but still eat well, have fancy homes and modern conveniences! The average person can eat conch salad, drink Kaliks; which is simply provided for them and lay on the beach. That really is an island paradise.
Sherelle Wallace
