BC Pires

My name is Alan Ja­son Austin and I man­age a small sea­side inn in To­ba­go. I'm orig­i­nal­ly an on­ly child from Cas­cade, Port-of-Spain. I nev­er moved house for 18 years. Un­til I moved to To­ba­go. That's sta­bil­i­ty.

I con­sid­er my­self a re­al Trin-Bag­on­ian: half-and-half, in life and years. I was six when my dad died. It was a big event for a small child. Cause of death was colon can­cer and he de­nied it to him­self for a long time. My mum didn't even know. Treat­ment didn't be­gin un­til it was al­most too late. I re­mem­ber go­ing to Pi­ar­co to pick him up, the last per­son off the flight, get­ting him down the stairs and in­to a wheel­chair.

I have very fond mem­o­ries of Sun­day lunch at home with my mum and dad and Neil Di­a­mond and Nana Mask­ouri mu­sic play­ing. Stewed beef, lentils and rice. And "Song Sung Blue." I don't eat at my inn's restau­rant too of­ten. To buy it, pre­pare it, see it, smell it, fix it, present it every day - some days you just don't feel for ten­der­loin or lob­ster. We came to To­ba­go think­ing it would be a three-year tour of du­ty for my mum. I had just fin­ished O-Lev­els at Fa­ti­ma. My mum said: "You can do ad­vanced lev­els or be a beach bum for a while and then we'll re­turn to Trinidad." That nev­er hap­pened.

At Bish­ops, I was pleas­ant­ly sur­prised to find the lev­el of ed­u­ca­tion was just as good as or even a lit­tle bet­ter than what we called the pres­tige schools in Trinidad. All my work ex­pe­ri­ence has been in To­ba­go. Peo­ple from Trinidad say, "You not bored in To­ba­go?" I say, "It's my place of work-but I'll come lime with you all on the beach." When I go to Trinidad, peo­ple from To­ba­go say, "Be care­ful! That place dan­ger­ous!" I tell them, "That's where I'm from and the places I go to up to to­day are places I feel at home in." I like rock. In col­lege we lis­tened to Guns 'N' Ros­es, Aero­smith and such. Peo­ple say, "That's not your type of mu­sic!" I say, "What is some­one's "type" of mu­sic?" I de­ci­pher it as the mu­sic you grew up on.

I think so­ca mu­sic is more mu­sic you dance than lis­ten to but there are a few songs in every year that stand out lyri­cal­ly, even though the beat is ac­cel­er­at­ed. Like "I's a Tri­ni" by Ben­jai. To­bag­o­ni­ans used to hold on to the kitchen gar­den, the rus­tic con­nec­tion. When I first moved, they were still hap­py with pitch­ing mar­ble at school. The tru­an­cy hadn't set in yet. The new thing in To­ba­go is to just, "Hus­tle a car." Run a car as taxi. Big ug­ly chrome rims. Pong out big loud mu­sic. It makes a lit­tle change at the end of the day. For­mal re­li­gion doesn't play a big role in my life at this time. I'm a strong be­liev­er in des­tiny. A per­son doesn't know what's go­ing to hap­pen 30 min­utes down the road, far less three years.

I have not lost the hope that, in small cir­cles, young peo­ple can still bring up chil­dren in a good way. If I had chil­dren, I'd like them to en­joy the best of both is­lands. The peace and tran­quil­i­ty of walk­ing down the road bare­foot to go by your neigh­bour in To­ba­go and the world­ly, re­al-time, mod­ern wis­dom of Trinidad. I checked in some peo­ple, an East In­di­an fam­i­ly of four, and the la­dy is busy lock­ing the room door. I told her, "Don't go back to Trinidad with this habit but, chill out, leave the key in the door. Staff are around." I am the gen­er­al man­ag­er of the inn di­rect­ly un­der the own­ers. It en­tails main­te­nance and up­keep of the rooms and the mar­ket­ing of the inn, get­ting the guests in, mak­ing sure they're com­fort­able. I don't gen­er­al­ly in­ter­face with guests but I am around and do get in­volved.

I'd nev­er stay at my own inn. You need to go home af­ter a day of work. There are a few "best parts" of my job. One of them is our guests leave sat­is­fied. An­oth­er is the di­ver­si­ty of peo­ple I get to meet. The down­side of the job is, be­ing in man­age­ment, you have to work six days every week. Un­less there's a dis­as­ter, when it goes up to eight days a week. Every day, you walk down the road and see some­one who has watched too much tele­vi­sion and wants to adopt a cul­ture that is not ours and will not get them any­where. Kids adopt styles that have noth­ing to do with us. I wear an ear­ring my­self but it's a very mi­nor point of be­ing trendy.

Peo­ple say the worst things about young peo­ple not hav­ing am­bi­tion or dri­ve. But, like it or not, they are the fu­ture. A Trin­bag­on­ian is some­body who makes a con­tri­bu­tion to so­ci­ety, not just for them­selves, or for fame and glo­ry, but to give back. Trinidad and To­ba­go is a coun­try that has come from an in­ter­est­ing his­tor­i­cal back­ground - who colonised, who re­mained, who set­tled. Very sad­ly, in my hum­ble opin­ion, Trinidad and To­ba­go is be­com­ing a lost so­ci­ety.

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