Going for Gold

We (Trinidad & Tobago) have sent 31 athletes to the London games. We won't get 31 golds but we don't need to. We'll win some (well ONE for sure), we'll medal in some, we'll fail to place or finish in others, but in all instances, they will have tried. What more could we ask?

I love my country. I curse it, its politicians, its laissez-faire attitudes, its 'make-the-fool-go-further' approach to business, its attitude to the environment and health and welfare, but I love my country. Still though, one of the things about the country that pains me most is that we don't seem to understand what it takes to be great. And we could so easily be great.

We don't seem to get that for every Keshorn Walcott, who today won a gold medal in men's javelin at the 2012 Olympics, there are hundreds of John Browns, who will win nothing. This does not for a moment mean that the John Browns are worth nothing, but rather that maybe they haven't yet figured out what they can win at. They haven't yet had the opportunity to find out. Keshorn Walcott found out. Hasely Crawford (100 m gold, 1976) found out. Wendell Mottley (100 m silver, 1964, Yale graduate, politician) found out. Ato Boldon found out (3 bronzes and a silver in 2 Olympics and now has a pretty great career as a broadcaster). What about the rest? The job of a good government, a good education system, a good social system, is to ensure that every John Brown, who might otherwise end his race with a DNF - did not finish - has the opportunity to find out where he/she fits and how he/she can add value to the country they love.

Keshorn and the other 30 Olympic hopefuls have found where they want to be and are doing what they want to be doing. They have found where they fit. If we as a nation, are really so worried about our crime situation and our future, we should be trying to find out where the lost boys and girls of POS and environs fit and give them the opportunities to explore the things they are drawn to.

Many years ago, when I was an elementary (primary) school teacher, I had two students whose stories have stayed with me, Johnny and Hakim. Johnny was a little boy whose background I heard was difficult. Johnny was though, one of my hardest working students. When I would give the class ten words with which they had to write sentences, Johnny would come to school the next day with astonishing work. First, this 9 year old boy had the penmanship of an old man taught by some colonial days teacher: beautiful; tidy (almost to a fault); careful. Second, he wrote the most delightful and thoughtful sentences I had ever seen. I don't know that he was trying to please me, but he certainly did. After I quit my teaching position in search of fame and fortune, I once saw Johnny on the street. I asked him whether he was still writing those beautiful sentences to which he replied sincerely, "Miss, we not bright again since you left." Not much has hurt me as those few words did, offered as they were, by an earnest little boy on a street corner. I cannot remember how I responded, I just know my heart hurt.

The second child whose story I think of often, is Hakim. Hakim whispered to me one day that he wanted to be a doctor. I wrote out for him on a piece of paper what the steps would be: high school; O' levels; A' levels; university and then medical school. It all would start with his high school entrance exam which was two years off. We folded the piece of paper and he put it in his pocket. I charged him to hold on to it tightly and look at it every day. It was to be a guide, a tool, a goal sheet.

About 4 years later, I saw Hakim again. Begging. "Hustling a bread" he called it. Where are they now, Johnny and Hakim? I have no idea. Hakim may still be 'hustling a bread' and Johnny may have continued to believe that he was somehow smart only because of me. Either way, that's two that may have been lost because their opportunities were limited at age 9.

Today as we celebrate our gold, bronzes and the years of effort of our athletes, I want to remember Johnny and Hakim. Why? Because on the flip side of every wonderful success are the children who lack even the simplest opportunity to become one tenth of who they should be. Keshorn's success may be our success but by the same token, so too is Hakim's failure our failure.

We have greatness in us. I know it. It is why my country makes me weep. We have greatness in us, but we choose to squander it, to pick and choose who will rise and who will fall. Perhaps these Olympics in which a fella from Toco has won a medal, we will finally begin to understand geographical/racial/gender/ability discrimination cheats us all. Just imagine if the boy from Toco had never picked up a stick to throw. Just imagine if he hadn't been encouraged to dream his dream. What would we be celebrating today?