From A Country Boy To World Statesman, Ambassador Curtis Ward

Curtis Ward remembers the days when Jamaica punched well above its weight on the global stage and its voice rang loud in the world’s diplomatic councils.

After over eight years serving in Jamaica’s Foreign Service, including three years and eight months at the United Nations, Curtis Ward now lives in Maryland in the United States.

He says he now spends time with his wife of over four decades and his grown children. But he does keep a pulse on the things that occupied his life for so long - geo-politics.

“I enjoy reading and watching sports on TV,” he said. “I spend lots of time keeping abreast of geopolitical and security-related interests.”

Maryland is a long way from Treasure Beach in Jamaica’s southwestern parish of St Elizabeth where, Ward, who will be 70 in November, grew up, learning to live, during his early years, without electricity and running water.

Ward, who attended Howard University in Washington DC where he got his Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Political Science and Juris Doctor, Business and International Law and later Master of Laws from Georgetown University Law Center, Washington DC, in International Law, entered Jamaica’s Foreign Service in 1975.

“After finishing school, I had all the intention to return to Jamaica and applied to Attorney General’s Office and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and my first posting happened to be in Washington DC,” he said.

This youngster, who got most of his primary education sitting on the floor at school because students outnumbered the benches, found a seat at the helm of the world’s powerhouse - the United Nations.

Ward says he misses his childhood - being able to go to the fishing village at Calabash Bay, swimming while the fishermen hauled their canoes onto the beach and being able to sleep with the windows open and doors not locked.

“I miss the uninhibited friendliness of the people and the vibrancy of our culture which, try as we may, cannot be replicated abroad,” Ward said. “These are some of the reasons I visit home at least once a year; and that is why my children see themselves as Jamaicans.”

( Taken from an article written in the Jamaica Gleaner Overseas Publication by Amitabh Sharma )