‘I will keep Jamaica in my heart’
Few bosses have the pleasure of being serenaded by their drivers. So when Keel Cooper broke into the popular Tarrus Riley hit She’s Royal, backed by the Skalareg Band at the farewell reception for Galina Sotirova, former World Bank country manager to Jamaica, it was, by her own admission, a bittersweet moment.
Keel was Sotirova’s driver during the four years of her assignment and a member of “the incredible team of colleagues in the Country Office whose dedication to work, to the betterment of Jamaica, are endless”, she noted during the reception at R Hotel in St Andrew on September 6, 2019.
She said that their friendship and good spirit will keep her warm “when snow starts falling in Washington”, the city to which she is now assigned.
Sotirova said that she was “blessed to be in Jamaica in the most exciting times when the country has been making an incredible turnaround”, and noted the World Bank’s role in “providing financial support, technical assistance and advice in areas of critical importance for Jamaica”.
Expressing pride in innovative programmes in areas like disaster risk financing, animation, and the Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education Sotirova said that she would take memories of these achievements with her along with knowledge about “Bob Marley, the sandy, sunny beaches and incredible sunsets over Kingston, Jamaica’s incredible warmth and willingness to embrace someone ‘from foreign’ and make them one of their own”.
She praised the International Women’s Forum for being “a group of professional women — philanthropic, strong, beautiful souls whose achievements we celebrate everyday”, and said she “felt blessed to be able to call them ‘sistahs’”.
“I will relish every single moment from the last few years in Jamaica,” Sotirova said, adding that she would keep in her memory the scenery “so different in various places that it is hard to believe all this is on a relatively small island”.
Added the World Bank executive: “I will keep in my memory the moving, exquisite performances of the National Dance Theatre Company, the great professional collaborations, the fun parties and the taxi driver who stopped his taxi [and] spent half-an-hour fixing my flat tyre and didn’t want to be paid. I will keep Jamaica in my heart.”
Finance Minister Nigel Clarke, in paying tribute to Sotirova, labelled her “Jamaica’s strategic emissary” and said she understood the country so well that he felt confident that she would be in an excellent position to communicate Jamaica’s priorities in Washington, DC.
Ozan Sevimili, the incoming World Bank resident representative, said he was elated to be in the country of Bob Marley, and predicted a fulfilling four years as “Jamaica is on the move”.