“Dad­dy, we know you don't have the job any­more, you don't have to buy ice cream for both of us. Just buy one and we'll share.”

For­mer Petrotrin in­stru­men­ta­tion and con­trols spe­cial­ist and fa­ther of two, Kevin “Chef” Williams told Sun­day Guardian that the words of his nine-year-old daugh­ter, Trin'elle on a trip to a mall kin­dled sad­ness, but more so, a sense of pride. It was the pride of a fa­ther who re­ceived con­fir­ma­tion that he was do­ing some­thing right.

Just over one year be­fore the pan­dem­ic hit, Williams and his fam­i­ly of four were al­ready mak­ing some lifestyle ad­just­ments. Find­ing him­self home af­ter hav­ing worked for 15 years at the state-owned oil com­pa­ny that was shut down in 2018 was not as dev­as­tat­ing to Williams as it was to some of his co-work­ers, how­ev­er. The dad said he was for­tu­nate enough to have had life skills and ex­pe­ri­ences on which he could draw to keep his fam­i­ly afloat.

Be­ing home al­so gave him the op­por­tu­ni­ty to bond even more with his daugh­ters who showed great un­der­stand­ing dur­ing their fa­ther's chal­leng­ing time. Williams dug deep, sum­mon­ing his par­ents' teach­ings and years of ground­ing as a Cub Scout, Scout leader and com­mu­ni­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tive to of­fer con­so­la­tion and sup­port where he could.

“Be­ing the main bread­win­ner and then hav­ing lost my job, a lot of things had to be re-pri­ori­tised. It was a bit of a blow to the fam­i­ly, but thank­ful­ly I have a sup­port­ive wife who held it down,” Williams re­flect­ed.

“I knew I had oth­er skills I could de­pend on. I do elec­tri­cal, plumb­ing and cam­era in­stal­la­tion, tiling and more, but I was look­ing at my co-work­ers. When you are em­ployed and have a mort­gage and car pay­ments and then the rug is pulled from un­der your feet and the bank is call­ing...

“I was think­ing more about oth­ers who were in a worse po­si­tion—the ca­su­al work­ers who didn't get a big pay­cheque to go home, those who are heav­i­ly in debt. Some just walked in­to the bank and re­turned their car keys be­fore the bank came look­ing for them. It was a re­al trau­mat­ic time for me to see what was hap­pen­ing around me.”

As job loss in one in­dus­try turned to na­tion­wide un­em­ploy­ment with the on­set of the pan­dem­ic, Williams sym­pa­thised, em­pathised and ad­vised men around him, re­ly­ing more and more on his train­ing in peer coun­selling and on his roots to be a “calm voice” in the whirl­wind.

His fa­ther, Steve, had worked in the oil­fields be­fore him and al­ways had a col­lect­ed, lev­el-head­ed ap­proach, which Williams said he al­so em­braced. From his moth­er, Gladys, a for­mer school teacher who cur­rent­ly lec­tures in life skills and cor­po­rate train­ing, he in­her­it­ed an op­ti­mistic out­look on life.

In the qui­et south­west town of La Brea, the name “Chef” or “Ms Williams' son” evokes a pos­i­tive re­sponse. He has long been a mover and shak­er in the com­mu­ni­ty. From the age of sev­en as a Cub Scout and lat­er, Scout in the First La Brea Scout troop un­der then dis­trict com­mis­sion­er, In­ez Chan­dler, Williams re­mem­bered de­vel­op­ing the dis­ci­pline and lead­er­ship qual­i­ties that would set him on a path of as­sist­ing and em­pow­er­ing oth­ers. At­tain­ing the Pres­i­dent's Medal (gold) from for­mer pres­i­dent Noor Has­sanali for ex­cel­lence in read­ing, ath­let­ics and sci­ence, among oth­er ar­eas in Scout­ing, fur­ther fu­elled the young­ster's pas­sion to con­tribute. So too did An­gli­can priest, Fa­ther John Ro­him, an­oth­er of his men­tors who al­so en­cour­aged many oth­er youths, Williams said.

Williams made pa­trol leader at sea scouts and went on to be a troop leader of his for­mer troop af­ter com­plet­ing a de­gree in Com­put­er In­for­ma­tion Sys­tems and an as­so­ci­at­ed de­gree in Busi­ness Man­age­ment at Caribbean Union Col­lege (CUC).

“It (Scouts) was a very vi­brant move­ment in La Brea, a pos­i­tive space for boys, men to ex­press them­selves; to run, play, learn, be pro­duc­tive and do com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice etc. I nev­er moved away from that.”

His yearn­ing to give back has en­sured Williams' in­volve­ment in so­cial groups and NGOs like the La Brea In­ter­na­tion­als char­i­ty group whose most re­cent ini­tia­tives in­clud­ed pre­sent­ing tablets to a pri­ma­ry school in the area last Sep­tem­ber, dis­trib­ut­ing ham­pers at Christ­mas and part­ner­ing with near­by busi­ness­es to do care pack­ages, out­fits, make-up and hair, and a tea par­ty for res­i­dents of the He­le­na Charles Home for Se­nior Cit­i­zens.

He is al­so a mem­ber of the League of So­phis­ti­cat­ed Gen­tle­men of T&T (Los Gents TT), start­ed by one of his friends, Aaron Nichols, who had the vi­sion to cre­ate a group geared to­wards holis­tic de­vel­op­ment of men. Their work has in­clud­ed a youth men­tor­ship pro­gramme for a few male CXC stu­dents who would al­so re­ceive as­sis­tance to at­tend grad­u­a­tion from spon­sors, TT RideShare, Ecliff Elie and King's Lounge Bar­ber Spa, Madi­son Av­enue De­signs and F1 Me­dia House Lim­it­ed..

Be­tween 2015 and 2020, Los Gents TT part­nered with the then Min­istry of Sport and Youth Af­fairs to de­vel­op the Mpow­er pro­gramme and the M Lounge talks—a safe space for men to ex­press them­selves. Here, male youths would ben­e­fit from talks, life skills train­ing, aca­d­e­mics and in­tern­ships and men­tor­ships from the likes of sailor and Olympian, An­drew Lewis, for­mer Chris­t­ian ra­dio per­son­al­i­ty and ra­dio pro­gramme man­ag­er, Jamie Thomas, de­sign­er, Ecliff Elie and mu­sic group, Free­town Col­lec­tive etc. Williams re­called a par­tic­u­lar­ly pow­er­ful ses­sion held in San Fer­nan­do in 2020 on fa­ther­hood which re­vealed the pain that some men in T&T qui­et­ly en­dure.

“It was re­al­ly touch­ing be­cause, at one point, the ques­tion was asked: 'Which of you don't have your fa­ther around?' When I saw how many hands went up, I was amazed. The host then asked: 'What mes­sage do you have for your fa­ther if you were to see him right now?' It was heart-wrench­ing...sim­ple ques­tions like 'what did I do wrong?', 'Why you not here with us?', 'When can I see you?'

“And to see these young men look­ing tough on the out­side, but when they had to speak about these is­sues they were ba­si­cal­ly break­ing down in tears...” Williams lament­ed.

Point­ing to his par­tic­i­pa­tion in a talk on stay-at-home dads held by Los Gents TT in their “Sip and Chat” sea­son two pod­cast, Williams said he had no prob­lem be­ing “very open” about his sit­u­a­tion.

“It was noth­ing shame­ful for me; the op­por­tu­ni­ty to drop the girls to school every day, pick them up, when you go in you hear: 'Dad­dy!' They so hap­py they want all their friends to see and meet their dad­dy. It gave me more time with them, so it was a bless­ing in a sense.”

Bond­ing has al­so meant step­ping in and comb­ing the girls' hair. With their moth­er abroad on va­ca­tion for three weeks in 2018, Williams went to work, sort­ing out his daugh­ters' hair­dos.

“It was just the girls and dad, so I couldn't let them go out of the house look­ing any­how. It was a joy of course. I vague­ly re­mem­ber plait­ing my mum's hair when I was small, so I knew a few things.”

Hap­py days spent va­ca­tion­ing with grand­par­ents among lots of cousins had ex­posed him to ac­tiv­i­ties of girls in­clud­ing hop­scotch, skip/jump rope and plait­ing hair.

“You pick up a lit­tle skill here and there. I can still do a lit­tle plait and their hair is nat­ur­al, so you put a nice lit­tle part, some nice lit­tle buns. But now that they are big­ger, Dad­dy can't comb their hair again,” he joked.

What his daugh­ters love

Hair­styles aside, the girls said they were hap­py to spend time with their fa­ther. Trin'elle en­joys when he makes them “break­fast and tea.”

“I re­al­ly like when Dad­dy ser­e­nades us to wake us up on morn­ings and I like when we go on walks. It re­al­ly light­ens my mood,” shared Trin-Kara to the laugh­ter of all three, their fun and play­ful in­ter­ac­tion on dis­play even dur­ing this in­ter­view.

Re­call­ing the birth of his first­born with ease, Williams said he had in­sist­ed on be­ing a present fa­ther “from day one.”

“Trin-Kara was born a month pre-ma­ture. It was a very tense time rush­ing to give blood etc. My wife's emer­gency surgery (C-sec­tion) was suc­cess­ful, thank God and they took me to the Neo-na­tal ward and I saw this cute bun­dle of joy in the in­cu­ba­tor,” he laughed.

“I melt­ed. I lit­er­al­ly melt­ed. I al­most felt my knees give way. It was like: wow! This is my seed? God is so awe­some. They took her out and I was able to hold her and I put my fin­ger by her hand and she held it and squeezed it. It was an amaz­ing, amaz­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. I was over­whelmed.”

The proud dad had to be in­volved im­me­di­ate­ly, feed­ing, chang­ing and gen­er­al­ly car­ing for the ba­by while his wife re­cov­ered. When Trin'elle came along, he had a sim­i­lar rou­tine since his wife again un­der­went a C-sec­tion.

A diehard pa­tri­ot, Williams gave his daugh­ters names which would let peo­ple know ex­act­ly where they were born.

Their par­ents have in­volved the girls in char­i­ty work, Brown­ies, bal­let, dra­ma club, art class­es and sports. Usu­al­ly, their rou­tine is al­so packed with know-your-coun­try tours to places like Bam­boo Cathe­dral and beach­es, as well as hikes.

“...be­cause you want them to be as pa­tri­ot­ic as they can, so wher­ev­er they may land in their lat­er lives, they would be a great rep­re­sen­ta­tion of what Trinidad and To­ba­go can pro­duce,” Williams in­formed.

In­spired by their cousin, Young Devvyn who is a rap­per in the US, the girls al­so en­joy mak­ing dance and song videos and even did a catchy song and used it as the cov­er mu­sic to one of the fam­i­ly's videos while on a beach and hik­ing trip. They al­so pro­duced a video for their fa­ther's birth­day.

He too is pas­sion­ate about mu­sic, moon­light­ing as mike man for his DJ broth­er, “Rag­ga” and hav­ing won a com­pe­ti­tion to com­pose a chant for the crick­et team, “T&T Red Steel”, the pre­de­ces­sor of the Trin­ba­go Knight Rid­ers. He has al­so done a few so­ca record­ings.

Al­so ac­knowl­edg­ing his wife and child­hood sweet­heart, Mar­cia, Williams de­scribed her as his “num­ber one sup­port­er” and “rock”.

“I heard about her be­fore I even saw her–this pret­ty girl from La Brea. We both passed for Ves­signy Sec­ondary School, my proud al­ma mater. As soon as I saw her, I knew this was the per­son every­body was talk­ing about, so I was head over heels from day one. We be­came pla­ton­ic friends, then best friends. Three years af­ter we grad­u­at­ed, for some rea­son I picked up the phone and called. We rekin­dled our friend­ship and next thing you know, it was love.”

Williams had moved from La Brea with his par­ents to Trinci­ty dur­ing col­lege, but love and the job brought him back to his child­hood town. Af­ter court­ing for ten years, when he and Mar­cia se­cured a home, they got mar­ried on Ju­ly 13, 2008.

With the long list of tal­ents un­der his belt, hard to be­lieve that Williams' nick­name “Chef” did not come from his cook­ing.

“Grow­ing up, you have your lit­tle vil­lage ar­eas and our street was Rus­sia. I was the pres­i­dent, Mikhail Gor­bachev. Then it turned to 'Ke­vichev', 'Chev' and then 'Chef',” Williams ex­plained.

As for ac­tu­al­ly try­ing to live up to his so­bri­quet, Williams said he's a work-in-progress but is still com­fort­able in the kitchen as he usu­al­ly takes over on Moth­er's Day and oth­er spe­cial oc­ca­sions.

He is look­ing for­ward to the girls and their mum pay­ing him back on his spe­cial day to­day.

Q&A with Kevin “Chef” Williams

What do you re­call about your in­ter­ac­tion with for­mer pres­i­dent Noor Has­sanali when you re­ceived the Pres­i­dent medal (gold) as a cub scout?

“It was a very proud mo­ment and Mr Has­sanali and his wife were so gra­cious, so warm. I re­mem­ber one of our scouts, his shoelace was un­tied and the pres­i­dent ac­tu­al­ly tied his shoelace and that made the (news) pa­pers. That's the type of per­son he was.”

How has fa­ther­hood changed you?

Fa­ther­hood is a bless­ing, just as I be­lieve it is with moth­ers when you have a child. I didn't think there was more to give, but when a child comes along you re­alise how far you're will­ing to go, how much more you're will­ing to sac­ri­fice to en­sure that this life that you brought in­to the world is well tak­en care of; giv­en the best op­por­tu­ni­ties for learn­ing, growth.

What qual­i­ties from your own fa­ther do you in­cor­po­rate in­to your role as a fa­ther?

My dad was a scout as well and he felt it was a good tool to be­come self-suf­fi­cient, to learn char­i­ty, take care of oth­ers. His dis­po­si­tion, his abil­i­ty to func­tion well un­der pres­sure. He has this say­ing: he's like a ket­tle; his bot­tom is on fire, his bel­ly is boil­ing, but he's whistling still. Peo­ple are amazed at my abil­i­ty to stay calm in the tens­est sit­u­a­tions whether it be so­cial, do­mes­tic, in­dus­tri­al. Things would be chaot­ic around me and I would fo­cus on so­lu­tions; calm­ing every­body, giv­ing in­struc­tions. I def­i­nite­ly got that from him. He would al­ways be there as a steady force through it all.

What would you say to T&T and to men in par­tic­u­lar who may feel less in­spired than you in these times?

I must say that the men­tal stress of this pan­dem­ic is def­i­nite­ly rear­ing its head. When you look at so­cial me­dia and you see how we re­late to each oth­er, no one is pa­tient any­more and we are quick to in­sult, em­bar­rass ridicule. We seem to be more in­ter­est­ed in the dra­ma and the 'fight down' in­stead of strength­en­ing each oth­er. What I'd say is to re­mem­ber who we are, who we came from. We may be dif­fer­ent faces and dif­fer­ent races, but we are still one na­tion. We are still a blessed is­land; a coun­try where you still have re­li­gious free­dom, you're not fac­ing per­se­cu­tion. Yes, we may have a bit of a crime surge as with any oth­er coun­try, but gen­er­al­ly, we are a hap­py and blessed peo­ple. So in this pan­dem­ic, we need to prac­tise that watch­word called tol­er­ance, have our dis­ci­pline and con­tin­ue to be pro­duc­tive be­cause as we did with every ma­jor up­heaval we've had in the coun­try, each and every time, we came back stronger, bet­ter, we bond­ed to­geth­er and chart­ed a way for­ward. Be your broth­er's keep­er and we'll get through this to­geth­er.