NO LAUGHING MATTER: Please help my good friend

Dear Christine, I have been reading your column for many years and although I thoroughly appreciate the advice that you give to those who write to you, I never imagined that one day I would have to write you too.

Christine, I have a good friend whom I love dearly but I am so concerned about her behaviour that I feel compelled to seek your advice. I have tried my best to help her but at this moment I am totally frustrated and exhausted.

My friend is 48 years old and she is behaving in an extremely immature manner. She is exhibiting signs of self-destruction.

Years ago she used to carry herself well. She always looked presentable and was well groomed. People would always comment on her beauty and even her demeanour. Even foreigners who would just be visiting for a short while would give her compliments. They would praise her for her looks and comment on how clean her skin was.

But Christine, something has gone terribly wrong. My friend is now a shadow of herself. Everything about her is deteriorating. She does not seem to care anymore. She has some symptoms of an extremely depressed person.

Her house used to cleaner than the “board of health”. You could eat off the floor. Now, there is garbage all over the place. She does not clean around the house and the mosquitoes are causing havoc. Just the other day she was sick, sick, sick. She had the chikungunya. Christine, I swear she was going to die.

But apart from the chikungunya, she goes to the doctor regularly. The doctor says that she will improve but we are not seeing any change. The medication that that doctor is giving her is definitely not working. Christine, I am afraid that we are soon going to lose her.

Bad to worse

Things are going from bad to worse. Her children are not being supervised and are therefore free to do as they like. These children do not have any manners or respect. They curse anyone who dares to try to put them right and they don’t seem to have any interest in school – especially the boys.

Some of those boys are old enough to work but they would not even look for a job. They are so accustomed to “freeness” that although things difficult with their mother, they would not even lift a hand to help themselves. They would prefer to steal rather than look for a job. Christine, you could imagine that the police force got 155 vacancies and people out of work and yet the force can’t fill these jobs.

And if you see how these children dress. The girls are wearing the tightest and the shortest dress that they can find. They leave nothing to the imagination. I feel that all of that help to put my friend in the condition that she is in today. It hurts me sometimes when I think of how things used to be when parents used to emphasise things like morals and decency and respect for elders.

And Christine, her boy children are wearing their pants way below the normal waistline. They are copying the prisoners in America who I understand do that to advertise their bodies to each other in order to do dirty things. Christine, they look so disgusting. I hear that in America some of them who have been wearing their pants like that for a long time are now getting hip replacements. Apparently when you walk like that it changes your posture.

Well, Christine, what I am going to tell you now is what really forced me to write you. My friend does not get any money from the father of her children. Because of that, she started to allow some men in her house. But these men are not really helping her. They seem to be taking what little she has.

Christine, when it rains it pours. My friend recently got laid off from her job and because of the hardships that she is experiencing, she gone and “ketch up wid a foreign man” – just because he has money. Christine, one look at this man and you can see that he is up to no good. He is going to take advantage of that poor woman.

And the people in the village “washing duh mout’ pon she”. They are saying that she has an international man friend with “nuff” money.

She complained to me that he has not given her a cent but he is telling her how to spend the little bit she has. Christine, you don’t think that is unreasonable?

Christine, please help my friend. Her name is Barbara Dossy. And her birthday is today. But Christine, please don’t mention her name. Thank you and Happy Independence.

• Mac Fingall is an entertainer and retired secondary schoolteacher. Email scouds@yahoo.com.