Harry has 27 siblings. That's our plumber.
As with most tradesmen, he came to us through a recommendation - that's the reliable way in the Bahamas. He and his company have been with us since the dark days when we only had the ocean for washing and ablutions. But until today we had only met his son, Andrew, who had done several marvelous jobs for us. Andrew is one of five (4 boys and 1 girl) who have all been trained by their father ("they start to learn on their 10th birthday"). Today Harry was here to help us out with a persistent toilet problem (no more detail necessary here) and got talkin'.
He was born on Eleuthra (one of the outlying islands), the 27th child of a brood of 28. His mother was a large, strapping lady while his father was a small, hard working man and they began having children when she was 13. She was effectively pregnant from adolescence through middle age. Other than the stunning natural beauty of Eleuthra there is obviously not much to do there. The family was hard working but struggled with such a large family. They lived in the sparsest of dwellings – 6 boys to room no bigger than a pantry. The oldest son managed to get to Nassau and pick up a trade. He returned to pass on the vital skills and thus the others began to strive. Now several of the family have a variety of building skills to their name and many live on New Providence Island. Harry has one of the most successful plumbing businesses on the island built on hard work and great customer service. But Harry has not forgotten the upbringing by his hardy parents or how tough and yet beautiful life was on Eleuthra.
I guess there’s a moral tale in here somewhere about hard graft and good fortune - but suffice to say that our plumber is a nice guy and has an interesting story. By the way, Harry wouldn’t take payment for the job he did today – “just buy me lunch”. Deal!
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Nothing wrong with Harry's plumbing...
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3 comments:
Okay that was wild--for our honeymoon we flew to Nassau then to Eleuthra then took a water taxi out to Harbor Island. Five days with gorgeous weather. It's a good thing we decided to move up the date to June because the day in August when we'd originally planned to be on Harbor Island was when hurricane Andrew came through and killed four (I think) people on Eleuthra. My husband's name is Andrew.
Very cool story! He sounds like a keeper! No payment??? Yeah he's a keeper!
Wow, I love the way you told his story. What a life he's led, certainly interesting. No charge? Man, I need to move to the Bahamas, our plumber charges $60 just for showing up!
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