Features
BC Pires
AS TOLD TO BC PIRES
My name is Marcia Cedeno and I take my pet Chihuahua Gucci anywhere I can take her.
I used to be born in Carenage and spent the primary 4 years of my life there, not much of which I remember.
After which my father uprooted his young family, my mother and 4 of us, by accepting a job to administer a sugarcane, cocoa and low estate in Central Trinidad.
In Central Trinidad within the mid-60s, there was no electricity. People used gaslights.In Port of Spain we had principally every thing. In Central, we had nothing.
We had this big stereo, records, a television, washer – all just sitting there because there was no electricity to plug them in! We could have been living there for a few years before electricity got so far as us.
Running water was a luxury. We got water from the standpipe a couple of days every week.
It was a pleasant life, because we literally were running wild in Todd’s Road, slightly village nine miles from the centre of Chaguanas. The population was probably more East Indian. There have been a couple of like my family, mixed.
(Former media man and MP) Maxie Cuffie grew up there and we’re good friends.
Quite a lot of the people living within the village worked on the estate.
We had chickens, we collected eggs. I remember selling cow milk to Nestle.
My father continued to work in Port of Spain, so he left home early and got back very late. Commuting on the Old Southern Foremost Road, only a single two-lane road.
I went to slightly school called Todd’s Road RC, which remains to be there.
The estate was 115 acres and had a river. We had a cocoa house and a coffee house, so we learned to bop the cocoa and the coffee. We were a part of the things the employees were doing. It was a giant game!
We returned home from any individual’s house at sundown. No person nervous. The employees just allowed us to do anything we wanted.
My mother moved to Todd’s Road with us, a young woman, taken from family and friends and left in a giant house with 4 children for many of the day.
She didn’t adjust thoroughly. I suppose she became lonely. Sooner or later, she packed up and he or she left.
In those days, it was unusual for a single man to bring up 4 children.
My mother did come back to search for us about three years later. But not to remain. She had her own life in Port of Spain.
Mainly we grew up with our father and a housekeeper.
Sometimes I feel the choice Daddy made was not 100 per cent right for the youngsters.
But I wouldn’t hand over my countryside upbringing.
We were really brought up by the community. They were hardworking, but generous.
Should you needed to place up a shed, all the lads within the village would come together on a Saturday or Sunday. You cook some food, you purchase a bottle of rum, and by the top of the weekend, you had your shed up.
You examine it in all those Caribbean literature books, but I actually lived it for a few years.
I didn’t feel I can be complete if I didn’t have a baby, so I got one, pretty late in life, Dominic, and he’s my life’s biggest blessing.
He’s a physician in England.
For the primary three months of Dominic, I didn’t sleep. I just lay down at night watching the cradle to be certain that he didn’t stop respiratory.
When Dominic was asked how he ended up being a physician, he said, “My mother had me within the doctor’s office every Monday morning.” Dominic says he developed his interest in medicine because he sat in doctors’ offices so often as a baby.
I finished school at St Joseph’s Convent, Port of Spain. Imagine a rustic bumpkin from slightly village school speaking dialect moving into the town and these amazing buildings that were St Joseph’s Convent!
(The Convent girls and I) had absolutely nothing in common.
They knew about happening the islands on the weekend or going to Miami for holidays and all I knew was sugarcane, cocoa and low! They were reading in history books in regards to the planting of the cane within the Caribbean – and this was my life!
I used to be raised in a really Catholic family – not a lot my father, but my aunts – and I’m still Catholic. Considered one of my favourite cousins was a nun, Sister Helen Gomes from Holy Name Convent.
I
worked with TSTT selling telephone directory promoting for a very long time.
I grew up running wild, so being locked in an office didn’t make sense to me. I all the time worked in sales, on the road, and made my very own hours.
Then I moved to Longmans, promoting textbooks.
Finally I worked in real estate, matching people to the best home. The market is pretty difficult in comparison with once I began 14 years ago: (no more) expat rent.
There’s no middle ground with real estate. It’s either something you like otherwise you hate.
I used to be given Gucci by a friend who couldn’t keep her in July. After I first met her, in May of this yr, I fell in love: this big personality, little dog. She’s a purebred Chihuahua. Her papers all say “Gucci.” She was even given to me with a Gucci carry-bag.
After I got Gucci, I didn’t realise I used to be getting a baby! Mainly you might have to brush her teeth, manage her time. So that you don’t leave her alone for too many hours within the day. She’s three years old, but I didn’t realise she was a four-legged child!
The primary night I brought her home, I put her on her bed, and each hour, I touched her to be certain that she was respiratory, because she was so tiny! I couldn’t see her respiratory under her blanket. They don’t have any body fat they usually get cold, in order that they love fluffy blankets. She sleeps in my room in her little Gucci doggie bed.
Luckily for me, I do a whole lot of do business from home. Quite a lot of places in Trinidad aren’t pet-friendly. So she’s my constant companion, so she doesn’t spend 5 – 6 hours alone in any respect. Sometimes I drop her in my handbag when I am going into the supermarket.
I’m sitting there, working, I’m petting her and it does help. She keeps me calm.
And Marcia and calm don’t often go in the identical sentence!
The most effective thing about having Gucci is having a relentless companion. I wouldn’t say I used to be a lonely person, but I all the time sit up for coming home. And shutting the world out.
And having a peaceful quiet companion sitting there who would only provide you with a kiss is admittedly a great feeling.
A real Trini to the bone is, we will take all of the things life throws at us – the great, the bad and the indifferent – and still have a ball. Still party. Still benefit from the moment.
At one time in my life, Trinidad was every thing. I remember all my friends going away to high school and I selected, literally, to remain in Trinidad. I absolutely loved my country.
But I even have mixed feelings about Trinidad now. But now it’s too late for me.
Would I need my son to come back back? Yes, he loves his Trinidad – but I’m not completely satisfied with where we’re going. People speak about racism and this, that and the opposite but once I go searching…
If I could leave, I probably would, to be honest.
