I had a meeting I couldn’t get away from Monday evening, so I missed most of the show. But with the amount of calls I got, I dashed home to catch the final bit – where the guy had to dump two of the last three ladies. I was hooked by the script. As I watched, my imagination ran wild. I wondered about the extent of the plurality of the Bachelor’s original choice line-up. And whether the producers ever thought of inserting one or two Caribbean women in the midst. Or what a young St. Lucian woman would have done to make sure she’s the one who got picked. Or how she would have reacted to being dumped -- on TV -- on the most beautiful island in the world. And in the full view of millions and millions around the globe. (See how easy I got hooked? That’s what a soap is meant to do. And that’s what it does everywhere, every day.) But script, story and fantasy aside, I suspect that, like me, most St. Lucians were also (if not more) interested in the sites and sights of Fair Helen as never seen before. Marvelous. Lovely. Simply Beautiful.
Just like the TV soap operas, I don’t get the time to listen to radio’s daily version – the talk shows. But I understand that St. Lucians abroad called home to register their pride, on air and by e-mail, at the beauty and majesty of our country. Goose flesh. Pimples. Tears of joy. Beams of pride. Thumbs up.
The Bachelor thing worked. My understanding is that over 20 million people watched the show that night – in America alone. And maybe several times more around the world, tuned to ABC. And maybe every St. Lucian everywhere else in the world who knew about it. (And if they didn’t, they must have by now.) Sure bet. I understand we paid nearly half-a-million US for the entire package. I asked a friend who’s a master sergeant at figures and accounts to do the arithmetic for me. As he sat at the table at our favourite watering hole, I thought the calculator handed him wouldn’t have had enough zeros for the Long Division I had imagined. But after fingering the machine a bit, Sarge offered the same Allen Chastanet smile as he informed me that “We paid roughly 25 cents per person.” And, as if he imagined explaining the real cost to his overseas-based mom, he added, still smiling, “About one Guyana dollar!”
I know we all have a thing about the amount of money going to tourism marketing vis-à-vis other things. I still want to know how much we paid Carnival and American to keep coming here. And for Boxing in Paradise. I want to know every cent we have paid to every entity that delivers visitors to our shores. And I still want a real assessment of how much we’ve made from what we’ve spent. I still want to see the maths. And even if I’m sure I won’t see them today, there’s always tomorrow. But while I wait for tomorrow, let me take my hat off today to the minister and the Tourist Board on this one. And everyone else who had anything to do with it. This is one time we cannot disagree if the minister takes to the air and proclaims that this was “money well spent”. Worldwide PR at 25 cents per head? Uh-huh!
Just like when each of the two St. Lucians won their separate Nobel Prizes 13 years apart, that night was another day when we were all proud to be St. Lucians. Me too. And I think the next time we’ll feel so proud to be ‘Lucians’ will be when Leverne Spencer does a Usain Bolt and breaks an Olympic record. But that one won’t be no soap. Nah!

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