Dear Editor,
People often approach me and ask me to write to you concerning different issues, and I generally let them know that their opinion is not my opinion and that they have to put their thoughts on paper and send them to you. In this case I myself have decided to find out if what was told to me is true: “Mr. Russell I can’t speak no Papiaments or Dutch and I can’t understand what it is they does be saying when I call the bank to find out if government put the li’l pension money on the bank.”
This has always bothered me because it happened to me several times because on several occasions during a conversation with the elderly that question comes up and as they would say in Papiamentu (“kurpa habri”) without giving it a second thought I would dial to find out if government had deposited that stipend on the bank. And again I would be struck by the fact that the recording on the answering machine of a bank situated in St. Maarten is in Papiamentu and Dutch. English is out of the question. A book of recording in Dutch and Papiamentu.
And when I finally get someone on the line and ask that age-old question if “government pay the pension” which nowadays has become “did government put pension money on the bank” I get a barrage of questions. When I ask why all of these personal questions just to know if government has put the pension money on the bank I get answers like “we want to make sure that you have an account with us before answering that question.”
I cannot lie about this because at the beginning it tells you that your conversation is being recorded. But I continue to be embarrassed because I still do not think that the crime is so bad in St. Maarten that one has to be careful while asking if government has paid pension.
But for me it is even more degrading that the bank which earns a great deal of its money in St. Maarten would not even honor the population by having a recording in the official language and our people in government continue to hold those responsible in high regard. Who is government actually representing?
Then the question automatically rises like my father “the old sailor” used to say when he had up a few, “Who is the captain of this ship?”
By the way, now that everybody is aware of the controversies with the so-called vaccine, why have not we heard that the doctors in St. Maarten have come together to formulate a plan of action to combat COVID-19? Is this question far-fetched?
Russell A. Simmons
