It's really Better In the Bahamas
We sat and talked as I told Chinello, "From the time I was ten years old,. I was trying to escape this place." On the American television shows, children were never abused; I desperately wanted to get to America. My mom would buy a ticket for me to travel with her, but they would turn me away at the airport, even when children could travel on their mother's passport, they refused to allow me to go. When I graduated from Eight Mile Rock High School in nineteen-seventy-seven. I became more determined to leave. Donna, my best friend, and I had tried to find employment. However, most of the time, we had to stay home, and wait until our parents had a few extra dollars to give us to get the bus to Freeport , and back to Eight Mile Rock. Most of the places to which we filled out applications, would say, "You have no experience. There was no chance of me going to college, since my Mom did not have the funds.
I became more aware that I wanted to definitely leave Grand Bahama, and make something of myself. How to do it was a problem. I had no funds! Then I realized that every time my older sister Karen and her husband, came to visit, they would give me a few dollars. I started to save every nickel and dime I could. I still did not know anyone in America who I could live with. Our eldest brother Alfred was attending college in New York , and I would be a financial burden on him. The opportunity came for me when St. Agnes Roman Catholic church sent Sandra and I to Miami to register at a convent.
I had recently been told that we had a Great Grandmother, named Salome Ann Paul, an evangelist with the Church of God of Prophecy. Living in Miami, I was focused on finding her. After going to a few of my cousin's houses, I ended up at my great-grand mother's house. She was delighted to meet me, because she had never met my mom. She had left the Bahamas in 1925, when she was a young women of eighteen, and had left her two baby boys, and a baby girl behind. When I found her, she was excited to see her great grand child from her first-born son. Once I returned to Eight Mile Rock, Donna and I decided that we would both leave. She also had a grandmother living in Miami . We had each saved up fifty-nine dollars, which was the fare to travel on the boat to Miami .
Once we left, we knew that we were definitely not coming back to Eight Mile Rock. My leaving would make it easier on our mother, as she would only have eight children left to take care off; and I would be the fourth one to leave home. We were given six months to remain in the United States . Once I arrived at my great-grandmother's house, she fervently encouraged me to return to Grand Bahama , and apply for a student visa so that I could attend college "I came home to Freeport , and traveled to Nassau , and was given a student visa. I attended Lindsey Hopkins Technical College , and became a Licensed Practical Nurse. My student visa expired in nineteen-eighty-two. So here I was, twenty-six years later, making a full circle back in the yard from where I tried so hard to run away. Pushed out of the country that I have known all of my adult life, back to a place where I spent my childhood trying to escape.
******************************************************
About The Author
Regina Sears-Muschett was born on the Island of New Providence (Nassau) in the commonwealth of the Bahamas. She is the sixth of twelve children, born to the late Winifred Delores Sears. As a girl growing up between with nine brothers, she was a tomboy at heart. As a native Island girl, she loves fishing, writing poetry, and painting. Growing up on the Island of Grand Bahama, she was restricted from going to places and doing some of the things her brothers did. Therefore, she hates the word "cannot" with a passion.
Graduating from the class of 1977 from the Eight Mile Rock High School, her childhood dream was realized when she migrated to Miami, Florida in 1978 where she pursued a higher education in nursing. In 1983, she relocated to New York City. Having a desire for the care and welfare of children, she obtained a degree in Early Childhood Education from Hostos Community College. Ms. Sears-Muschett now owns and operates the BriBraCo Day Care Center, named after her three children Brian, Bradley and Corrine (Coco) as she is affectingly called. Ms. Sears-Muschett is also a collector of porcelain and other native dolls from around the world, as well as glass blown unicorns.
In 1997, she felt the call of God upon her life for the gospel ministry and therefore attended and graduated from the Manhattan Bible Institute. She is an ordained minister and currently serves on the ministerial staff of the Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, in Harlem New York. She is married to her soul mate, the Rev. Cecil Muschett and has three children.