Dear Editor,

My complaint is about the number of beggars that are in Jamaica today. It suggests that this practice has now grown to industry proportions.

Jamaica is always my favourite place for vacationing, but my visits are always spoilt by the constant begging. There seems to be no escape from the tour bus drivers, the raft operators, and people on the streets.

My worst experience was last Christmas after I landed at the Norman Manley International Airport in Kingston. On my way to Immigration I stopped to use the restroom and a lady who was one of the attendants asked for something for Christmas, while I was urinating. I couldn’t believe my ears and eyes that someone could be so rude.

Many of my friends who are not Jamaicans complain that the constant begging is the most annoying factor of their trip to Jamaica. They were tired of hearing from all the locals whom they encountered, the hard luck stories of hunger and how their children cannot go to school.

In Haiti, which is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, only the really poor and the destitute would ask you for money on the streets. We Jamaicans seem to have lost all our pride and decency and sense of well-being. All we now care about is our stomachs.

Mr Editor, without pride in ourselves we are going nowhere fast.

Edmond Campbell

Elmont, Long Island

New York USA

Campbell2@un.org