Dear Editor,

If life is a definition of good and bad it is never more seen than in Jamaica.

The country is the illustration of life’s greatest contradiction. At one stage a Jamaican is breaking a world record in athletism, while at the other stage others are setting new records as child killers.

On the one hand, Jamaicans are creating uplifting reggae music, but on the other new figures are painting an island of great women beaters.

One Jamaican excels as an innovative farmer, but two others carrying the long bags as the reapers of his crops.

A Jamaica, on the one hand, may be observing safe protocols against COVID-19, but others are standing by the good luck oil.

Often locals will rally to help out during an emergency, but same people would cut your throat for your cellphone or your jewellery.

Jamaicans hold world-leading placements in beauty contestants while with the ugly records of crime and brutal living also reign.

Jamaica boasts verdant hillsides, beautiful skies, and mountains that dip to sunny beaches, even while the country excels in ghettos, grievances, and broken dreams — the epitome of beauty, yet the abyss of cruelty.

Homer Sylvester

Mount Vernon, New York, USA

h2sylvester@gmail.com