April 10, 2026 • 3 min readBajan Brief
Bridgetown. Friday. The CARIFTA swimmers are home and the dengue numbers are not improving. Both things are true and one of them requires more urgency than it is receiving.
CARIFTA SWIMMERS RETURN
Trinidad and Tobago’s CARIFTA swim team landed at Piarco to a reception. Barbados’s own contingent had a creditable showing at the Games in Grenada. Across the region, the 53rd CARIFTA Games reminded everyone that the Caribbean produces competitive athletes at every age level with a fraction of the infrastructure budget that larger countries use to produce roughly equivalent results. This is either an argument for the talent of Caribbean youth or an indictment of how little we invest in it. It is probably both.
Read More → April 10, 2026 • 3 min readBajan Brief
Good morning. I am Miss Violet. I have been watching the news and I have several things to say about the state of Caribbean civic preparedness, sporting achievement, and mosquito policy. Please sit.
THE SWIMMERS EARNED THIS
I want to be clear that the CARIFTA swimmers did not land at Piarco to polite applause because they were expected to do well. They earned that reception through months of training in pools that are not always in ideal condition, with coaching that is not always funded at the level it deserves, representing countries that do not always have the national sports budgets to justify the results they somehow consistently produce. When we celebrate CARIFTA athletes we should celebrate them knowing the full cost of what they accomplished. That cost includes everything that was not provided and had to be overcome anyway.
Read More → April 10, 2026 • 3 min readJamaica Brief
Aye yo it’s Leroy. Calling in from the Bronx. Cousin Merle just text me the news and I had to sit down.
THIS SHANOYA GIRL THOUGH
Listen. 22.11 in the 200. Last week she run the fastest 100 in the world. She running the whole world by herself right now. I show my coworker Marcus — Marcus is from the Dominican Republic, he does not understand cricket or anything — I show him the time and he look at me like, “is that good?” Is that good? Marcus I need you to leave my desk area immediately. 22.11 is not “good.” 22.11 is your grandmother bragging about you to everyone at church for the next six months. Shanoya, you doing the whole diaspora a service.
Read More → April 10, 2026 • 3 min readJamaica Brief
Jamaica, April 10. It is a Friday. Shanoya Douglas ran 22.11. A soldier killed his girlfriend. A bartender was shot in Red Bank. A Member of Parliament has been summoned by the Ethics Committee. The US dollar closed at $158.93. Normal.
JDF SOLDIER CHARGED, GIRLFRIEND DEAD
Damanice Tyrone Williamson, 27, a member of the Jamaica Defence Force, has been charged with the murder of his girlfriend Tanzanya Dunkley and remanded until May 20. He appeared in Manchester court. He raised his hands for the cameras in the way people do when they want to indicate they are handcuffed and should not be photographed like this. The court did not particularly care. Tanzanya Dunkley is dead. The JDF has not issued a statement that adds anything useful to this sentence.
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