BC Pires

My name is Zoree De­noon and I'm a pri­ma­ry school teacher trainee. A Greek vis­i­tor in To­ba­go told me my name is of Greek ori­gin. I didn't know that be­fore. My moth­er got my name in a dream. I be­lieve De­noon is Scot­tish. In To­ba­go, De­noons re­side in Spey­side. That's where my fa­ther's from. I was born in Bon Ac­cord. It's nice. But I like a busy place so I'd say the best part of To­ba­go is Crown Point side. Lots of beach­es, lots of tourists. I have two broth­ers and two sis­ters, and my Mom and my Dad are still mar­ried. I think fa­thers in Trinidad are more delin­quent. You find fa­thers in To­ba­go stand­ing up with their chil­dren even though they and the moth­ers are sep­a­rat­ed.

I don't have any chil­dren and don't plan any soon. I'm on a mis­sion at this mo­ment so I'd rather for­sake that moth­er­ly thing. Any­thing can hap­pen when my goal is achieved. At present, I'm 20 years of age. I'll be fin­ish­ing school at 22. By the age of 25, I should have a fair idea of what I want out of life so, by that age, I don't mind think­ing about hav­ing a child. I like ex­cit­ing places so I love Trinidad. The rea­son why To­bag­o­ni­ans don't like Trinida­di­ans is be­cause we are a–I don't want to say, "na?ve" but I have to say, "na?ve"–so­ci­ety. Not many To­bag­o­ni­ans trav­el out­side To­ba­go so they're ac­cus­tomed with this cul­ture. Any­thing dif­fer­ent, they tend to go against it. Not at all times, but...

I went to Bon Ac­cord Gov­ern­ment School and then Bish­op's High School To­ba­go. Truth­ful­ly, I didn't like sec­ondary school but now that I at­tend ter­tiary lev­el in Trinidad, I love it. This year, at train­ing col­lege, is prob­a­bly one of the best years of my life. The at­mos­phere and the ma­tu­ri­ty of the peo­ple at ter­tiary lev­el make it bet­ter than sec­ondary school. The age group is with­in 18-40 years. The Gov­ern­ment sends teach­ers who are al­ready in the sys­tem to do the ed­u­ca­tion pro­gramme. There are some peo­ple straight out of sec­ondary school but the ma­jor­i­ty are ma­ture peo­ple who know what they're about.

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I'm not boast­ing, but I'm a very pop­u­lar per­son. I had a lot of friends–peo­ple who might think they're my friends but I call them ac­quain­tances or as­so­ciates. I pre­fer old­er peo­ple, more ma­ture peo­ple but I can re­late to younger peo­ple. I read any­thing I can put my hand on. But I re­al­ly like Danielle Steele's col­lec­tion. As a pri­ma­ry school teacher, you have to be able to speak Span­ish. Not to be flu­ent, but I know the ba­sics and can un­der­stand it a bit. I first left To­ba­go when I was 18 go­ing on 19, De­cem­ber 2008. I went to Trinidad to pur­sue a B.Ed at the UTT Val­sayn Teach­ers Col­lege. That was the first time I knew about Hin­duism. I knew about Di­vali but I wasn't fa­mil­iar with what the deyas rep­re­sent­ed, all of that. I didn't even know there were dif­fer­ent gods. I on­ly knew Moth­er Lak­sh­mi grow­ing up in To­ba­go.

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I didn't like it at first, but I love Trinidad now be­cause Trinida­di­ans treat me more like fam­i­ly than any To­bag­on­ian ever did. That might sound bad. Let me rephrase it. In Trinidad, when I didn't have� any mon­ey to buy any­thing to eat, my friends brought gro­ceries out of their own cup­boards and gave me. When my Mom didn't have any mon­ey to send for me to trav­el to school, my friends give me mon­ey. That re­al­ly touched me be­cause, I not say­ing this in any bad way but, if ten To­bag­o­ni­ans give you any­thing, eight of them you'll hear it back that, "I gave her some­thing." Two might keep it hush-hush. Peo­ple may say Trinidad is a bad place but I say they need to get out more. You might go to Trinidad for a week­end and hear a guy get killed right down the road from where you stay­ing but that doesn't say Trinidad is a bad place. Or Trinida­di­ans are bad peo­ple.

It just says there are both good and bad peo­ple liv­ing in Trinidad.

There are def­i­nite­ly more crimes in Trinidad, be­cause we have ten mur­ders for the year, 12, if so much. You could get that in one long week­end in Trinidad. I'm spe­cial­is­ing in pri­ma­ry ed­u­ca­tion and hope to teach SEA kids. And def­i­nite­ly want to work in Trinidad! You teach the whole syl­labus � you should be able to, af­ter four years! One teacher to a class. The best thing about be­ing a stu­dent teacher is learn­ing about chil­dren and the way they think. The bad thing is you're al­ways faced with the dif­fi­cul­ties of stu­dents. You have to keep your peace and deal with dif­fer­ent per­son­al­i­ties.

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A Trinida­di­an would mash your foot and don't say sor­ry, but a To­bag­on­ian would mash your foot and say sor­ry. So I guess you could say we're more po­lite. But, if you get to know that Trinida­di­an and that To­bag­on­ian, bet your bot­tom dol­lar you would pre­fer the Trinida­di­an. All the po­lite, they po­lite. I wouldn't pre­fer a Trinida­di­an hus­band to a To­bag­on­ian one. I'm look­ing out­side of To­ba­go AND Trinidad. I would rather date a for­eign­er, prefer­ably of the Cau­casian vibes–I don't want to say skin colour be­cause that would be dis­crim­i­nat­ing. I would tell my ex-boyfriend, "Make sure you open the door for me." He say, "You like too much of rank­ing things!" So tell me what about open­ing a door for a la­dy is "rank­ing thing"? 60-40, you'll find a white guy treat­ing a la­dy bet­ter than a black guy.

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A To­bag­on­ian is a per­son who loves bac­cha­nal. Trinidad and To­ba­go is my home­land. It al­ways will be. Beau­ti­ful peo­ple, nice beach­es. To­ba­go is fair­ly safe. Lots of� ex­cit­ing places to go in Trinidad. You have the both.

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