My name is Dominic Persad and I'm the senior broker in an insurance brokerage firm. I live in Barbados but I'm from Arima. Even if I've now spent more time away from it. That's where I grew up. I left Trinidad when I was about 12, relocated to the United States but went back home when I was 19. I'm in Barbados now, because my mum is Barbadian.
I don't consider myself just totally Indian. That's part of my heritage but not the complete thing. I'm Eurasian. But, having said that, it's a bit more difficult being 'Indian' in Barbados than Trinidad. Because of the numerical makeup of the Indian population in Barbados, and because the Indians there tend to be of Guyanese descent. So there isn't that Trini cultural base.
I was raised as an Anglican. I'm very much aware that the Arima I left has changed dramatically. It saddens me greatly. My grand-mom still lives on Sorzano Street, near the Dial. She's a bit of an Arima institution known as, "Ma Paltoo". Hers is one of the only private properties still there. It's totally commercial and the crime level is out of this world.
My parents thought living in the US would provide us, their children, with a better education. But, when they got divorced, they each went back to their roots. My dad is still in Trinidad. I came to Barbados with my mum. I have two sisters and a brother. I'm the second child, first boy. It's girl, boy, boy, girl; I don't know how my parents worked that out, mathematically.
I try to go home every three months or so. "Home" is Trinidad, even though I've been living in Barbados for ten years. Nothing against Barbados, just that my soul is connected to Trinidad. My family makes fun of me, but I'm "alive" when I'm home. In Trinidad. I was going to get married in 2008 but I got cold feet. I've seen the ramifications of divorce.
I've knitted out a life for myself in Barbados and it's an excellent country. But my navel string still pulls me home. If something was to present itself, I'd be home. My ex-fiancée is from St Vincent. I was doing my bit to help out Caricom. There's no one on the horizon because I'm concentrating on my career now but, like the job in Trinidad, if something were to come up, I'd be all guns blazing! Job and romance in Trinidad, I'd be there in a heartbeat.
The Bajan party scene is more of a "seen": you go to be seen, not to dance. It can sometimes get robotic and monotonous. When I first went to Barbados, I asked a young lady to dance; and she looked at me like I was from another planet. A Bajan guy told me, "That's not how you do it. You just attack!" So, culturally, I'll be honest, I haven't been able to assimilate fully.
I've played mas and the experience was indescribable! I can't remember the name of the band I played with, but it was a religious experience. I had a breastplate, shoulder plates, those things on my arms and shins and a standard! You have to have a standard to enjoy yourself.
I'll listen to soca all the way to work as soon as I jump in the car to go home. It relaxes me the way classical music relaxes other people. I appreciate Bajan soca. But it's just not the same. It seems like a replica, not an original. I don't feel Bajan at all. I'm at home in Barbados but home is Trinidad.
We service all our clients' insurance needs, whether something as simple as finding them an economical premium or settling an immense claim. It's not a slogan: we really are there 24/7! Insurance brokers are intermediaries between clients and insurance companies. We're not aligned with any company. We do business with all of them, but service our client, who is our customer. If we lose our clients, we don't have a business.
Trust and honesty is the most important thing in the relationship between client and broker. If that trust is breached, the relationship is finished. The best thing about my job is being able to help people. Be it as small as obtaining the first motor insurance for a young person or as large as sitting with a family member through a fire loss. Seeing them go from that devastation to getting back on to the right foot. The bad part is the stress! In this job, you're only called upon to show your true colours when something negative happens.
That can become overwhelming. A Trini is a citizen of the world. He has the ability to drink a Stag up Toco in a rumshop and carry on a conversation with an ambassador at the UN. Trinidad & Tobago means home and freedom to me. It is who I am.
Read a longer version of this feature at www.BCRaw.com.