Oh, how things have changed through the years.
Growing-up living with my mum in Praslin, Micoud, there were certain aspects of life that seemed normal and community-worthy in nature.
For instance, if a mother from another home needed some extra sugar, or salt, or any other commodity related to her kitchen needs, she would go next door and ask the neighbors for a little bit, without feeling like a beggar. Nor will the giver look down on that asking mother, or talk to or about her negatively. That’s how we lived.
But, fast forward to today, and such a need would seem odd and unthinkable because you would feel ashamed or be afraid of being shamed, because these days you just don’t go asking neighbours for basic things like sugar or salt.
In the same way my mum would pick as many mangoes as possible from the outside tree, put them to ripe and when they were ripe would keep a little but give away most of the mangoes to persons from the neighbourhood.
If she cut down a banana or plantain tree, she would keep a couple hands and exchange the balance for a root crop that she didn’t have.
This was a common way of life and almost everyone thought that way.
It was also a common practice for mothers to tell the neighbours to “keep an eye” on her children while she went shopping, leaving the home open and the children under the supervision of the neighbours. But again, that way of life seems weird and none-existing in these times.
In much earlier times, if you did not own a vehicle or were broke, getting a ride from Point A to B was as easy as drinking a glass of water. But here again, today it may take you hours to get a ride from a Good Samaritan.
We seem to have become so selfish and non-caring that I sometimes think we no longer care for each other. People will see who robbed your home or your garden, or entered your car in your absence, but will say nothing, claiming they are “minding my business” or “that’s not my business” or because they may be afraid what can happen if the offender gets to know.
Elderly gentlemen will do their best to seduce and obtain sex from children in exchange for gifts, to satisfy their ego without giving a thought of the damage that can cause. But today, it’s all about the money, living in style, showing off, pretending to have more than another and looking down on people.
Today there is no empathy or sympathy, far less love for each other. Everyone is watching each other with distance and disdain, with no care in mind. Culturally, we have become strangers to each other, even though we may share a drink in a common recreational space.
Everybody has become self-centered and egoistic, with little remorse – even when there is a calamity. How or why we have become such a people or become of that ilk is beyond me, but these are some of my observations that I have discovered of late.
As to if we are following world trends or we have been re-cultured is beyond my understanding, but for what I knew and what exists now, there is a vast difference. Children don’t respect their parents or listen to adults, young girls don’t want to have to wait to become a woman, or take suggestions or advice from those who have braved the waters before them.
The elderly are frequently disrespected and marginalized and everyone has become their own lord and master.
Oh, what a tangled web we weave in this forever-changing society.
One set of people think they are the best educated, another group thinks they are also deserving because they have a degree, bosses look down on employees and the privileged few think that they alone have to eat, while the rest of us should remain as slaves, especially if you have reached a ripe old age.
But wisdom is not for the elderly, because we are not all IT-savvy in this new world we live in.