self respect

[peter]

I thought I would begin this forum with a short story from my personal experience in Dominica(a small Caribbean island). I was there working on a fantastic adventure, helping to build a 40ft dugout canoe with the Carib Indians. I was helping a friend of mine who was known as "Brother" (every Carib has a nick name of some sort, and are rarely referred to by their birth name), to pick bananas and pack them in boxes for sale. Brother was a very grounded man who had a large family to feed and take care of. He did it quietly and confidently with next to no money and a wealth of wisdom and a straight-forward approach to doing what needed to be done. His cousin, "Natural", on the other hand drank to much and seemed to always have problems all around him. It is a very labor intensive job to produce a perfect arm of bananas. The bananas at the edge of the bunch are automatically cut of and thrown away because they stick out slightly, and cause inefficient packing. The flower at the end of the arm of bananas is cut off at a certain stage of development. Also, there are small flowers at the end of each individual banana which need to be cut off at another stage of development. All this cutting is done with a razor-sharp hooked knife. To cut these flowers at a high speed and to do it all day long, requires great skill so as to avoid slicing your hand in half. I made a comment to Brother on afternoon. He was cutting. I was picking up the arms and carrying them to a place where the women dipped them into a poison prior to packing them to be shipped to the U.S. I said " Brother, you must have cut your hand a hundred times doing this work." He turned and looked at me and said "Pintache(my other name), I have no need to cut myself. I am a content man. But Natural is always cutting himself"

[Moppy]

Dear Peter,

What a thought provoking story. It really makes you take stock of your life. We should realise that it is time to be grateful for what we have and learn to live the life we are meant to lead.