We are not ornithologists but whenever we pass around the Hawk’s Nest on our weekly Saturday morning walks, we look eagerly into the pond to count the number of flamingos.

Twenty-three is the top number, so far, with 5 light grey chicks; A wonder!  (Flamingos are born white or some shade of grey.)

It’s the food!  The shrimps, algae, that clothe them in the brilliant pink that we observe in the adults.  

So many lessons from food.  So little initiative from the government to resuscitate a public health system that focused on the determinants of health.

For our goal should be ‘health care,’ healthy lifestyles, with ‘sick care,’ the tertiary necessity, as an important weapon in the health arsenal.  

And so, we suffer, unnecessarily, from chronic and even communicable diseases whose impact could be lessened via sustained health education.

Our productivity levels fall and we are less competitive and less profitable in business.

But the flamingos:  

We have seen them in flight.  Riveting!  For although there is dominance in their ranks, in flight, they work in unison.

“No man is an island

Entire of itself,

Every man is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.” (John Donne’s 1624 )

We wish we could say that the politicians of the land work in unity. But each one is bent on showing what (s)he can do and the whole is far less effective than the sum of its parts.

Now, we have entered an era where government ‘red tape’ is killing businesses.

That is tragic .  No private sector; No economy.  No economy; No hope.  No hope; No future.

The red tape has been lengthened by fear instilled by the COI given that some public officers have been arrested on breach of trust.

And although Pilate (the Courts) has found no fault in them, they continue to be interdicted but paid. 

We keep losing the flamingos in our commentary.

They fly in a ‘V’ formation.  There is a constant movement from back to front for the bird in the back is rested, relaxed, being pulled along in the draft created by those to the front.  

But those to the front quickly become exhausted.

So, that changing of the guards allows the flamingos to fly over 300 miles in one fell swoop, if that is their goal.

We have Dr Jarecki to thank for loading that first batch of flamingos into his jet and bringing them to inhabit the Anegada ponds.  And while that first flight did not go so well, he did not give up.

And here we are.  Enjoying the presence of these magnificent birds around the BVI, though nowhere more plentiful than those that number in the hundreds in the Necker menagerie.

We can learn much from the flamingos.  But more to the moment, we wonder if the NDP will.

The vultures are now gathering.  The long awaited NDP convention takes place tomorrow.  Depending on the outcome of their leadership conflict, this could be the decisive battle ground, the end of an era.

Of course, the public is skeptical about their apparent solidarity for significant issues of trust exist.

We have never, in BVI, witnessed such a vulgar display of hunger and thirst for power.  It is scary.  

History shows that those who will do anything to get power will, in the end, destroy everything to hold it.  Consider Caligula (37-41AD).

At the 2018 NDP convention, their hearts turned dark in a power grab and the People withdrew its power from them.

Now the People are standing by; Pencils poised; For they get the final vote.

Let the flight begin!  We hope the NDP demonstrates the wisdom of flamingos.

Time will tell.

Fridays can’t.

Happy Friday!