MARCH has become a very difficult month for me.

On March 23, 2001, I saw my mother take her last breath.

She and I were alone in the room and immediately I went back to the moment when she saw me take my first breath. 

Then last year in March, two people who had a great influence on my life, also took their last breath, Jean Coggins-Simmons and Keith Shepherd. 

Now, March 2006, we have had the bloodiest month in our history, as far as the taking away of many of our citizens from this earth by criminal elements in our midst.

Keith is still very much with me. 

He has been in my head for a while, saying to me: “You must never stop writing; do not mind that you have to write the same thing over and over again.

“Write you must.” 

These next four are for you, Keith, and for all those really kind citizens who met me and shared with me that they are missing my writings.

Two girl children are now without a mother, who really loved them and cared for them.  She was always there for her children, attended every PTA meeting, and contributed to the positive development of her children, other children and the community. 

She was taken away suddenly with one bullet to the forehead. 

I began to think that women are now being targetted. 

Not only are women the victims of domestic abuse now, but they are also becoming victims of street and gang violence.

One of the first women to be killed as a result of criminality was Ebony Henry, who, it is alleged, talked to the wrong people.

There was a time, I knew, when girls and women were able to go to their “badjohn” friends for protection, if someone did them something; but no more. Women are no longer protected. 

Boyfriends and husbands now seem powerless to protect their women. 

The traditional role of the man to provide and protect is really now in jeopardy. 

When men lose their jobs they feel emasculated because they can’t provide; now it appears as if they are also losing their ability to protect.

The Chamber of Commerce is asking to be armed with guns.

Should women now begin to ask for and acquire guns also? 

Is this now a case of the “Wild, Wild West” returning? 

Is this the 20/20 vision for which the powers that be are preparing us? 

An angry man stopped me in the road, because he recognised me from somewhere and he said to me: “Why allyuh ’fraid to talk d troot?” (Actually he stopped me the day after Spiritual Baptist Liberation Day).

“Why allyuh eh say that 80 per cent of Laventille is Spiritual Baptist and what dey do for Laventille, Eh? 

“What dey do all these years?

“No body eh saying dat. 

“Why allyuh ’fraid? 

“De only man who eh ’fraid, who does talk de troot is Martin Daly.”

Now, we can get into the blame game and if we start to blame, you will end up seeing that all ah we is to blame. 

Blame de government, blame parents, blame Spiritual Baptists, blame Catholics, blame teachers, blame de police, blame Abu Bakr, blame the Opposition, blame de Government ministers, blame multinationals, blame George Bush, blame the radio stations, blame de criminals, blame de psychologists, blame de removal of corporal punishment in schools ... when will it all end? 

When will we come together and understand that we are all in this together. 

We have a mammoth task on our hands to re-order all these disordered personalities that are walking around the place.

I began to look into people’s faces this past week and people are looking desperate; their eyes are wide and frightened; many of them have red, glaring eyes. 

People are tight, rigid and in trauma. 

We are a nation in trauma.

I travelled in a maxi recently and a lady was sitting behind the maxi-driver and she had a lot of bags. 

Some of the bags were going over to the other seat and the driver looked back and said, in a hostile manner: “Yuh payin’ for de two seats, lady? 

“Yuh interfering with mih livelihood.” 

I felt for the lady, because there are many people who come into maxis with many grocery bags; sometimes I have bags that I cannot help but carry with me.

Then the time came for her to stop off and when she had extricated all her bags, she asked him, “how much is the fare?”

Well, “who tell she do that!” 

The maxi-driver proceeded: “You sitting down there, right behind me all the time and you now asking me that. 

“I see that as procrastination; I have a family to mine an’ you asking me what you already know.” 

Believe you me, he was not soft with this reprimand.

I again felt it because I have to ask many times, since different maxi-drivers charge different fares for the same journey.

Also, many time fares go up and no one really knows.

Sometimes, also, I find myself in a place from which I have never travelled or to which I have never travelled, and do not know the fare and have to ask. 

That woman looked like a foreigner; there were two others with her and they all had travelling bags. 

I said to myself that as a people we are losing our ability to relax, we are losing the God in us, we are losing the “Do unto others as you will have them do unto you” precept that we were taught.

I see desperation in the faces and my guess is that there are people who are not in touch with the desperation, because they are sitting in ivory towers above everyone and are not being touched by the “shit that is hitting the fan” and splashing in all the faces of the people who are walking below.

Police administrators are being righteously indignant and saying that it is the community which must protect itself. 

The people in the community know who the drug dealers are, they know who the bandits are, they know where the guns are, they are the ones who must come and share the information with us. 

However, many people are saying that the police also know who these people are and many times when a community-minded person goes to the police, they do not feel “in their gut” that the information is treated with confidentiality. 

The meaning of the word “informer” is not readily acceptable in our society, and some how “informers” end up not being able to “inform” ever again. 

It is also felt that those “informed upon” have “friends in high places” and are “protected”. 

Again, the question that has come upon us as we work towards the 20/20 vision is: “Who is guarding the guards?” 

I imagine that this is why so many people( like me) who did not agree when it was first proposed, are beginning to warm up to the idea of non-partisan, impartial, outside help, and are shouting from the rooftops, “The British are coming”.