I come from a country where humour is premium. Whatever the scenario we can always eek out something to laugh about. Your article had a magnificent blend of that humour. In the vernacular we say: “sometime yuh hav fi tek bad tings mek joke”. Translated: Sometimes you have to take bad things and joke about them. A sort of survival mechanism, really. Your article had all the ingredients.

Every year in the Caribbean, we begin to hold our collective breaths from June 1; crossing fingers, toes and whatever available body part that can be crossed, that November 30 will arrive and we will exhale sighs of relief…no major hurricane.

A kind of conundrum, because the period is also our dry season and sometimes it takes a system to bring rain and replenish water resources. In that instance we pray for a Depression, hurricane that passes out at sea…no direct hit. Just something that will bring much needed water relief without the catastrophic damage.

Damage we can identify with after feeling nature’s aggression on a number of occasions; the worst a Category 3 hurricane called Gilbert in 1988 and Category 4 Ivan in 2004. The latter we all felt was “curtains for us”. At Category 5 it was to have made direct hit. The weather forecasters tried their best not to be too overly dramatic, while actually being quite dramatic. Fear brought on paralysis, while for dear Ivan the Terrible’s (as he was dubbed)part, he slowed, hovering out at sea for days, enjoying our psychological suffering or perhaps trying to get his groove on knowing he was coming to the land of reggae and Marley.

Gilbert on the other hand was a “welcome” visitor because many generations of people had never experienced a hurricane and naturally nothing was going to damper their enthusiasm. Thoughts of unimaginable devastation, broken water pipelines, flying roofs, loss of electricity had never figured in their plans hurricane parties, snacking, watching television while all hell broke loose outside. Hence, Gilbert became a real eye opener. Not solely because of the lessons taught and embedded, but because after the Eye of the hurricane made landfall at the eastern end of the island it didn’t continue across the island west and out to sea as expected. Oh No! It rested, (probably enjoyed some Red Stripe Beer or White Rum) and allowed some to make feeble repairs to roofs which had were separated from their houses and then made it’s way back to the east. Result! We were hit twice.

In the shock and awe devastation after he left, it was our penchant for humour which saved sanity. Our greatest parodist put pen to paper and produced a masterful satirical musical piece which had everyone rocking to the reggae beat and laughing our heads off, taking jibes at him, now that he was gone… “chatting” behind his back as the song joked. It was the medicine we needed to get through a year of unimagined after effects. That song is now a urban legend of sorts, revived and played every September 12.

So, you may be on to something. Your aptly placed humour certainly opened my eyes to the calamitous changing fortunes of the planet but certainly tempered any notions of running wild down the street as if the Devil was after me.