letter to the editor

Ex-pat bashing by locals

Tuesday,  April 19, 2005

Dear Sir,

Most of my working life I was an ex-pat – in Argentina, Australia, Arabia, Brazil, Egypt, England, New Guinea, Greece, Holland, Scotland, Africa, Trinidad and Yugoslavia. These are the countries I lived and worked in off-shore oil-drilling. My jobs were chief engineer, port engineer, inspector engineer of dry docking of ships, mechanical superintendent engineer and operations manager at times.

My last assignment was at Ras Shaker in Egypt, where I saw two of my best friends killed by a land mine. They too were ex-pats. I retired from the oil field after this mishap. My mind was not there anymore.

I came home in 1980 and worked for Public Works as a welder and senior mechanic supervisor and mechanical superintendent for 22 years. I’m now retired. I never once heard the word “ex-pat” in any of the countries I worked. They knew we were there to teach and help. Yes, most had university education but no experience. When they learned the job, we were gone.

Most of my best friends are ex-pats. Now, let me say, I’m a born Caymanian, not from Grand Cayman but Cayman Brac. So I’m called a Bracker. I grew up in the 30’s and 40’s. There were limits to our education. You started with a slate and an ABC book, then first standard and on to sixth standard. At aged 14, you had to leave school and find a job at sea and go on from there. 

My first was at Morant Cays, where you worked and worked some more. At nights, I slept on a board, not a king-size bed. You took a salt water bath and prayed for rain to wash, which didn’t happen very often. My first job on a big ship was in 1951, owned by the Kirkconnell family. There, you had to work and sail around the Caribbean. In 1952, I got a job with National Bulk Carriers, a company out of New York, along with other Brackers. The Kirkconnells thanked us for our hard work and wished us luck. I arrived in New York December 22nd with no warm clothing and no money to buy any, and it was cold.

My job was engine room wiper with the other guys as an O.S. Seaman. We worked our way up the ladder to become engineers, mates and captains. By 1956, we owned our homes. By the way, this is called ambition and hard work and thanks to a foreign company.

So, again, we were ex-pats. My jobs from 1952 to 1980 were all for foreign companies and thanks to them and ambition, I was able to attend mechanics engineering school in Houston, Texas and Peoria, Illinois, and also welding school in Morgan City, Louisiana. Yes, I’m also a certified welder. This is as far as my 6th standard education would take me (I have no one to blame).

If your paper would let me, I’ll go on a little more. Yes, I wish a university education was free back then. In today’s world, you must have the proper education to get a good paying job. I don’t blame the ex-pats. You Caymanians have a choice – education is free in the Cayman Islands, and even the US has to import people with a good education. Last year, they imported over 300,000. They are called foreigners; they fill jobs; they have the proper education. So even the US needs foreigners.

We must face facts, Caymanians – and yes, Mr Bo Miller, even you. When I came to Grand Cayman in 1954, it was nothing. The same goes for Cayman Brac. What we have today comes from hard working seamen and from foreign investment, so let’s thank them and live as one.

By the way, my father was killed in World War 2 in December 1941, aged 33. My mother had three sons and one daughter to rear and she did a good job. Two sons are engineers, one a captain and the daughter a housewife. The rest of what we have is called Brackers’ ambition. We built our own hospital and one, The Chrissie Tomlinson Memorial, in Grand Cayman. We started our own power company and built the retirement home. Brackers own the big supermarkets, a lumber company, heavy equipment companies, restaurants, etc in Grand Cayman.

Cayman has had four Chief Secretaries, three of them Brackers. PWD, Road Authority DVES-VDLD, Weather Services are all run by Brackers. The recently retired Hospital CEO was also a Bracker.

We have 600 to 800 Jamaicans here on the Sister Islands and many other nationalities. We live as one. I have many good friends on Grand Cayman, all very ambitious.

Thanks 

Talbert Don Tatum
A Bracker

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