Clay­ton Clarke

Her Ex­cel­len­cy Selvia Miller has just com­plet­ed her term as Pana­man­ian Am­bas­sador to T&T.

It was her first am­bas­sado­r­i­al ap­point­ment and she was the first Afro-Panami­an woman to serve as that coun­try’s diplo­mat­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tive in T&T.

In an in­ter­view on her fi­nal day in of­fice last Thurs­day, Am­bas­sador Miller re­flect­ed on her time spent here and the im­por­tance of women in lead­er­ship.

On a lighter note, the Colon na­tive said the sim­i­lar­i­ties in cul­ture be­tween Pana­ma and T&T made her feel at home.

Q: As you sit here re­flect­ing on your stint in this coun­try what emo­tions are go­ing through your mind?

A: I am feel­ing very emo­tion­al. At the be­gin­ning, I felt sad. I was a bit con­fused be­cause I be­came very com­fort­able here in Trinidad and To­ba­go. I was able to learn a lot about the cul­ture but al­so I got en­gaged with the peo­ple. I ac­quired friends, fos­ter fam­i­ly and every­body here made me feel at home.

Q: When you be­gan your tour of du­ty as am­bas­sador what were your ex­pec­ta­tions and goals?

A: I came in the midst of COVID so every­thing was crazy, every­thing was locked down. I did not have an idea of how to go about the ap­point­ment I had be­cause of the sit­u­a­tion. Af­ter things start­ed to get a bit nor­mal, and more nor­mal then I was able to start do­ing what I need­ed to do.

Q: Were your goals achieved?

A: I achieved a few things. I did not com­plete ex­act­ly what I want­ed to do but I achieved a lot. One of the things was I set Pana­ma on a very high pro­file be­cause I was around get­ting in touch with the peo­ple by go­ing to the uni­ver­si­ties, schools, etc, pro­mot­ing Pana­ma. The busi­ness re­la­tion­ship that Pana­ma has had with the Trinidad and To­ba­go peo­ple has been long be­cause this em­bassy has been here for 30 years. De­spite that, the pro­mo­tion of the em­bassy and the re­la­tion­ship that we had with Trinidad and To­ba­go is not well known. Dur­ing my time here as an am­bas­sador, I was able to do that.

Q: What do you think you unique­ly brought to the role of your coun­try’s am­bas­sador?

A: I am not a diplo­mat by ca­reer. I am a lec­tur­er am Eng­lish as a sec­ond lan­guage at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pana­ma. I was al­so a cul­tur­al pro­mot­er in Pana­ma for more than 20 years. Not be­ing a diplo­mat by ca­reer al­lowed me to be more cre­ative be­cause be­ing in­volved in cul­ture and ed­u­ca­tion made me go a lit­tle bit deep­er to do the things that I want­ed to do.

I was not that typ­i­cal am­bas­sador. I am unique in the sense that in the things a typ­i­cal Am­bas­sador would do I was a bit more cre­ative.

Q: Serv­ing here as a woman and a woman of colour, what op­por­tu­ni­ties did that present?

A: The op­por­tu­ni­ty to come here as an am­bas­sador was be­cause of my work in the com­mu­ni­ty, as a cul­tur­al pro­mot­er and as a hu­man rights ac­tivist. Talk­ing about our her­itage, our his­to­ry, and the link that we have with the coun­tries in the Caribbean. Our his­to­ry with Trinidad and To­ba­go, Bar­ba­dos and Ja­maica.

They saw what I have been do­ing, and they said, ‘This la­dy can do well, in Trinidad and To­ba­go. She is well in­to the cul­ture and so forth . . . she will blend very well in the en­vi­ron­ment.’ Some­one told me that is what they said. I was not there. I was look­ing for­ward to this op­por­tu­ni­ty be­cause of the cul­tur­al ties and the links that we have, his­tor­i­cal­ly. I al­ways want­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty like this.

Q: What chal­lenges did you en­counter? If so, how did you sur­mount them?

A: None be­cause in Trinidad and To­ba­go, I was re­ceived like one more of the peo­ple of this coun­try. If I was not speak­ing Span­ish, no one would know that I am not from here. I blend­ed in very well in the en­vi­ron­ment, so a lot of things for me were open doors. Some­one told me the oth­er day, ‘You are just one of us.’ So since I blend in very well in the en­vi­ron­ment, I re­al­ly didn’t have any chal­lenges and if I did have, I didn’t no­tice it very much. I was able to over­come every­thing.

Q: You were among sev­er­al women who are here as am­bas­sadors and high com­mis­sion­ers for their coun­tries. How im­por­tant was it for you to have women as your coun­ter­parts?

A: Women should have this op­por­tu­ni­ty and many more be­cause we should al­ways be ex­am­ples for our chil­dren and our rel­a­tives. In these po­si­tions, things are not as easy as peo­ple may think, and glam­orous as they may think. It is a huge re­spon­si­bil­i­ty be­cause you are not on­ly rep­re­sent­ing your­self, you are rep­re­sent­ing your coun­try and your com­mu­ni­ty, so you have to do that and do what you have to do as a moth­er, a sis­ter, a daugh­ter, a woman, a pro­fes­sion­al. You have all those roles.

Q: What were your ex­pe­ri­ences with the lo­cal food, mu­sic, dance, cus­toms and tra­di­tions?

A: Corn soup is my favourite. Bake and shark, salt­fish ac­cra, pholourie. I go crazy for pholourie.

I have to go on a di­et. This is not right. I ate too much in Trinidad. I came here with a spe­cif­ic weight. The food is too nice.

I grew up with so­ca and ca­lyp­so be­cause in Pana­ma that is part of our her­itage, so I grew up with the Mighty Spar­row and Har­ry Be­la­fonte.

There are a lot of things that are sim­i­lar to us in Pana­ma, es­pe­cial­ly the West In­di­an de­scen­dants in Pana­ma, so it was not dif­fi­cult for me.

For me, To­ba­go is like Colon, where I come from. Every­thing - the idio­syn­crasies of the peo­ple, the food, the cus­toms, the habits, the warmth of the peo­ple and how com­fort­able they make you feel. They al­ways want you to eat. In Colon every­where you go, you are go­ing to get some­thing to eat.

Q: What lessons and ex­pe­ri­ences are you go­ing to take with you?

A: I learned a lot in Trinidad and To­ba­go. As an am­bas­sador and not be­ing of a diplo­mat­ic ca­reer, I learned es­pe­cial­ly how to deal with peo­ple of dif­fer­ent cul­tures. I had to in­ter­face with all the diplo­mat­ic corps with dif­fer­ent cus­toms and tra­di­tions. In the end, I re­alised there are so many sim­i­lar­i­ties be­tween my coun­try and the peo­ple of these coun­tries, specif­i­cal­ly the Caribbean coun­tries. I am not talk­ing on­ly about the Eng­lish-speak­ing coun­tries, the Caribbean coun­tries that speak Span­ish. There are so many sim­i­lar things. In speak­ing in Span­ish in my coun­try, a word means one thing and in your coun­try, that same word means some­thing else.

Q: If you get the chance to re­turn will you come again?

A: I am com­ing back. I am com­ing back. I do not know ex­act­ly what time I am com­ing back be­cause I have in mind some cul­tur­al ex­changes that I would like to do with Trinidad and To­ba­go, so I will come back, I will come back.

Q: What is next on the hori­zon?

A: The next thing is uni­ver­si­ty, tak­ing back my lec­tures. My stu­dents are wait­ing for me. Some of the or­ga­ni­za­tions that I have been work­ing with for quite a while are al­so wait­ing for me, so I will be re­turn­ing and tak­ing over all the things that I was do­ing be­fore I came to Trinidad and To­ba­go, and I was quite busy in Pana­ma.