My Early Years: Teaching in the 242

 I was eighteen when I graduated from the College of The Bahamas with my  first degree and a teaching certificate. The year was 1983 and I was  anticipating a glorious teaching career. My first posting was to Betsy  Bay, Mayaguana, a far flung island in the southern Bahamas. When the  Bahamasair  flight landed on the island I was in for the shock of my  life. It was as though I went through a time machine and was ushered  back into the 1960s in my small settlement of Wemyss Bight on the island  of Eleuthera. The first sign of a throwback was observing the potholes  on the runway. Then when I saw the airport terminal building I was  astounded; it was a dilapidated rotting structure with half of the roof  missing. Apprehension was now setting in as I wondered what to expect  next. An elderly gentleman approached me and said that he was there to  pick me up and transport me to Betsy Bay. I loaded my scant belongings  onto the back of his pickup truck and hopped on-board along with a few  other persons who had seemingly just come to the airport for the outing.  As we sped away I was trying to make myself as comfortable as possible  because the narrow road was filled with potholes and as the speeding  truck dropped in them it jolted my confused brain to the core. Then I  saw the fight taking off from the runway headed back to Nassau the  capital. My heart sank and I wondered what the hell I had gotten myself  into.