Passing-up a Gold Mine

Sometimes when I hear St. Kitts Nevis being referred to as a third-world nation I wonder who gave us that label, and I also ask loudly and often who and what determines such positioning. I once wrote a poem asking the world classification-labelers to put a price on our year-round sunshine; how much would it cost if we could only bottle it; and that is only one of our natural resources that cannot be taken out of the country. You have to be on the ground here to benefit from it. But we have other gold mines too.
 Look at this gold mine as an example: Nothing brings Kittitians out of their houses like award ceremonies ( I was going to say out of their holes, but I changed my mind). I am absolutely certain, based on my observation only, that more people attend award ceremonies on St. Kitts than any other "show" on the island, because we love dressing up, we love fine food and exquisite ambiances, and we love family gatherings. We want to be there when our cousins, aunts, brothers, sisters and mothers are being awarded. We would sacrifice our pay cheques   to watch our aunt given a plaque for growing the largest pumpkin of 2016 -whenever it comes. We want to be there when our uncle receives his catch of the largest amount of fish of the year; we want to snap photographs of him taking the crystal fish while he grins from ear to ear. The poor guy never imagined anybody noticed that he had been dragging in large quantities of fish and feeding the whole island from the back of his pickup truck (well. . . .  first he started with his push-cart and his conch shell) and only now that he is  in his sixties these people notice and are now giving him a glass fish which he will put right on top of his cabinet for anybody who comes to his house to see, and if they don't see, he will personally get up out of the soft chair in his front room and shift it so they can notice.
No restaurant or local hotel, or even the clothes, shoes, jewelry and necktie seller on the island can lose business if we awarded more of our people with the fanfare and pomp so well deserved; and on St. Kitts, nothing motivates people to produce more, than knowing that somebody is noticing and may very well award them for it.