One step forward, two steps forward

AS TOLD TO BC PIRES

My name is Raymond Diaz and I treat my two stepsons as my own.

I grow my stepsons up to stay out of trouble, respect your elders. And love your brethren and family.

I was born in the west but I always say I’m from Cascade. I moved there sometime after the coup.

Cascade real nice. You in town in five minutes.

Without traffic. Correct.

Boy days was in Carenage, right near the sea, pulling seine.

I know about night fishing. My uncle had a boat and I first went out with him when I was about 19. I know how they’s set the fish-pot and everything. I kept up that fishing until I was about 23.

Actually, fishing was more of a job than boy days.

I started painting houses when I was about 19, too. So that’s another job I know a lot about.

My primary school was Carenage Boys’ Government.

I did like school but I never really take it serious. You know they say school days is boy days.

But as time go by, I realise how useful what I learn then is for this time now. I appreciate it now much more than then.

I went to secondary in Mucurapo. Didn’t have no senior sec in Carenage but I think they make a (Catholic church trade school NGO) Servol down there now.

I liked that school, too, but I didn’t really excel much at the subjects.

I have a fair knowledge of maths, English, social studies, enough to sustain me through life. I could hold my own.

I married my wife, Denise, in 2006 and I have two stepsons.

The big son, Akido Wilson, is about 25. Akel, he is 20.

I used to lime on Friday. Denise used to work at the same company as me. She was a cleaner, I was a warehouse attendant. We see each other, like each other, and just happened to go out a Friday. The relationship just grow from there.

This was around after the coup.

Is because of Denise I moved to Cascade. Those days, our boys, the smallest one was a year and the eldest one was five years.

My boys never called me Daddy from the first beginning but they consider me as their father and I like that about them: they respectable, they respect me, I respect them. I never once lashed them or show them any bad-face or ill will. We have lived as a family up to this day, ever since.

Both my boys still at home with me.

I pattern after my mother. I grew up with stepfathers who never once show me bad-face, so I just pass that on to my boys.

Even today, they might have their wife, she mightn’t be able to have children for them, but they will know the person who raise them to know how to behave and how to act.

I grew up with stepfathers but I know my dad, Thomas Peters. He still around and we move really good together. I don’t have no malice or anything towards him.

The onliest thing is, the situation in the west now, the gunplay and thing, I don’t really go down there to visit my family. The killing and the murder thing, I don’t really be in that.

I was watching a man on TV talking about how he grew up in Morvant and he was trying to make it. He was a part of the badness and end up in jail. But he come out, and he want to meet his three daughters and his son, who was a little handicapped but, don’t matter, is he son, and he stick by his son and grow him up and everything was good with them.

I had the knowledge of men saying, “Me ent minding no other man child!” That didn’t sit well with me. I don’t believe in that.

You like somebody, they have children, treat them the same way.

Nobody ever said anything critical to me about my treating my stepsons as mine – but even if I came across that situation, I would know how to handle myself. I’m a big man, nobody makes my choices for me. I buy my own things, don’t ask anybody for anything.

You really get fight down for that, as a man, but I don’t watch it as that way.

I not boasting or anything, but how I carry about myself, people don’t realise I’m 47.

I’m a man more believe in the spiritual, believe in the Father.

I baptise in the Anglican but I end up joining the Pentecostal.

All o’ we pass through the Catholic system at one time or the other.

When I done work, is home, eat, bathe, take a sleep. My relaxation is to watch TV. Watch the news – even the news does make me relax.

I mainly listen to CDs of conscious music, old calypsonians, Jah Cure.

Long time I used to venture to concerts but I’m sceptical of the gun thing in music now.

I believe we end up in this gun thing because the youths them not waiting until they reach a age to get what they desire. They want it now and they want it fast.

The drugs is a next side of the thing, fighting for turf, this (rival gangs) Muslim and Rasta (City) war. The youths have to choose a side.

As a youthman growing up, understand yourself. Talk to the elders to find out how to go about your life.

Even if you have to talk to yourself, talk to yourself.

And live in love and unity. Love your neighbour as you love yourself.

The only difference between Trinidad and Tobago…Well, you know, is really no difference. Tobago is the same love. Same vibe.

So really, no difference between the two.

A Trini is a all-rounder: he could fall in anywhere and be himself.

You must spot a Trini from a distance, anywhere they go: they stand out, joyful, laughing, with a smile on they face.

Trinidad and Tobago is the place I born and grow.

I never venture out into the open world.

But judging from what I know here, I love here! Here is where I born, here is where I go stay and here is where I go die.

I’s a Trini.

Read the full version of this feature on Saturday at www.BCPires.com