The revelry is over. The feasting on bun and cheese has come to an end. All the crazy parties and wining in the streets on the Lord’s day, drunk and disorderly, have left us sore in places we didn’t know existed. The hiding from the landlord because we spent our rent on costumes has reached fever pitch, but we press on, as we slowly return to normality.

Some of us are still hung over and here comes Elva with bad news. It is not intentional, but my father always said, when your neighbour is in trouble, be concerned, because your house is next to his.

There is a small invisible island very close to here by the name of Nolaughingmatter. The climate is similar to ours and the people speak the same Caribbean dialect. They party hard seven days a week and the country’s’ motto is ‘No Problem’. There, foreign exchange is mainly earned from remittances by family, friends and well-wishers (some of who have unwittingly been scammed into doing so, but that’s another story). Anyhow, back to the story. Most people have never heard of it, because the Nolaughians are a proud group of forgetful people. They have problems, as do we all, but they grumble in closed groups or laugh at their issues, and in three or four days they forget.

Even though they are easy-going and ‘no-problem-like’, these simple folk try to keep pace with world trends, hence democracy is practiced and they have two major political parties that they rotate every four years. There are no significant differences between the two, but faced with a lack of other options, the Nolaughians, grumble, curse, abstain from voting, and forget by the next election. Their elected officials are revered as gods, with little or no accountability for their actions.

Recently, priorities were skewed immensely and this is their plight.

It seems there was a shortage of fabric to make a national flag at a ceremony. The ceremony was allowed to continue even though elsewhere in the world that would have been considered desecration, but ‘No Problem’ is the motto, so they pressed on. What’s a little fabric shortage to a major ceremony of national importance?

Never mind the message being sent to young impressionable minds. Where it gets crazy is, at about the same time one end of the island was experiencing this challenge, fabric of the same colour needed, which could’ve finished the job since it was recently hung and in fairly good condition was being thrown out of an office to make way for more pleasant colors. Never mind that elected officials offices shouldn’t really be too cozy, since their efforts should be focused on working in the streets, but those Nolaughians are just that type of people.

This in a country that has major problems financially and can barely pay its civil servants or foreign debtors, but many grumbled in small corners and nothing shall come of it father says, because even if they did unite by some miracle and cry foul, the elected officials have made it so that nothing will change.

I feel sorry for these people. In this day and age of the World Wide Web and other major technological advancements, they still live in the 70s where political party and party colour significance is of far more importance than the country. Where a party elected by the majority to rule over everybody only acts in favour of itself. As my brother’s keeper, I’m asking for donations of fabric, paint, rakes (apparently the street cleaning team can only wear a particular color shirt and use colour-coded rakes) and any financial aid you can muster to help this little island overcome its difficulty. Send donations to me @ElvaJamaica on Twitter or email me for my bank account # elvachatalot@yahoo.com. Stay blessed and give thanks for life.