I was eighteen when I graduated from the College of The Bahamas with my first degree and a teaching certificate. The year was 1983 and I was anticipating a glorious teaching career. My first posting was to Betsy Bay, Mayaguana, a far flung island in the southern Bahamas. When the Bahamasair flight landed on the island I was in for the shock of my life. It was as though I went through a time machine and was ushered back into the 1960s in my small settlement of Wemyss Bight on the island of Eleuthera. The first sign of a throwback was observing the potholes on the runway. Then when I saw the airport terminal building I was astounded; it was a dilapidated rotting structure with half of the roof missing. Apprehension was now setting in as I wondered what to expect next. An elderly gentleman approached me and said that he was there to pick me up and transport me to Betsy Bay. I loaded my scant belongings onto the back of his pickup truck and hopped on-board along with a few other persons who had seemingly just come to the airport for the outing. As we sped away I was trying to make myself as comfortable as possible because the narrow road was filled with potholes and as the speeding truck dropped in them it jolted my confused brain to the core. Then I saw the fight taking off from the runway headed back to Nassau the capital. My heart sank and I wondered what the hell I had gotten myself into.
