Daddy, when are you coming home? - Stranded Jamaican cruise ship worker dreads Mother’s Day away from family

For drummer Conroy Gordon, the hardest part of being locked away day after day in the narrow confines of a stranded cruise ship is his inability to tell his two daughters when Daddy will be home.

For the past month, he has been battling this crucible each night as he bids his concerned daughters goodnight via cell phone calls.

On Mother’s Day, however, he fears the torment will be much worse as he continues to sit helplessly off the coast of Florida while his family continues its COVID-19 fight in Jamaica without him.

His younger daughter is two years old, and while Gordon, for the past six years, has been leaving his family on cruise ship entertainment stints, his latest voyage aboard Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas has left him doddering with depression.

“Working on the ship, whether pandemic or not, in general, it is hard. It is a sacrifice for your family, but it is an opportunity to make a better life,” Gordon explained in a telephone interview with The Sunday Gleaner last week.

“Now, it is even worse because you not getting paid and the bills have not stopped back home. The Government mentioned that there is a new normal and you can’t even come back to Jamaica and analyse how you can fit back into the society. You are stuck, your hands are tied,” lamented the drummer as he weighed the uncertainties on the horizon.

Difficult to find jobs

Pointing out that it is very difficult for musicians to find reasonable paying stints on the entertainment scene locally, Gordon said this was the reason many Jamaicans and Caribbean entertainers pursue cruise ship contracts. Most send home remittances, he noted.

Since the coronavirus crisis, he and about 100 Jamaicans have been left stranded on his ship with severed contracts. The Royal Caribbean is among nine cruise lines with Jamaicans on-board ships lingering at sea since the Government closed its borders to inbound passengers in March.

“We don’t know when the ship or the whole world going to start up back,” he continued before questioning the Government’s process of selecting who among the 5,000 Jamaicans stuck overseas would be repatriated and when.

Last Wednesday, Jamaica welcomed 115 returnees, including 75 ship workers, who are among 330 Jamaicans whose accommodation and food bill of $64 million will be borne by the State during quarantine. Among them were the 43 crew members of the Marella Discovery 2, who had unsuccessfully sought permission to disembark as the vessel docked in Port Royal weeks ago.

Up to last weekend, it was not clear when the remainder of the 330 Jamaicans would be brought back home, though Foreign Affairs Minister Kamina Johnson Smith said those with most challenging predicaments will be priority.

Starting to get edgy

The lack of clarity in the selection process, however, is gnawing at Gordon’s patience, and the more than 100 Jamaicans on his cruise ship are starting to get edgy as well. “They are demanding a comprehensive and transparent repatriation plan from the Government,” he said.

“Everybody has applied, but nobody knows the process. So it is like a political thing to me. I think that the people who got to come home, it was because of the media why they (Government) addressed them first,” he argued.

Back at home, Gordon’s wife, Racquel, said Mothers’ Day will be particularly difficult without the charm and mischief of her husband of nine years.

With limited resources, she has been doing her best to protect and provide for her household as the COVID-19 pandemic spreads across Jamaica.

“The major challenge is my seven-year-old. She has been hearing what has been happening on the news, but it is difficult to try and explain and comfort her. Every day she wakes up asking if Daddy is going to come home.”

“She keeps saying she can’t wait for the month to end for Daddy to come home,” said the mother, who has given up on convincing the child the wait could be longer. “They do everything together when he is here.”

Lunch dates and play dates with Daddy would make home lockdown a little easier for her and the girls to handle, Raquel said.

corey.robinson@gleanerjm.com