As told to BC Pires

My name is Er­rol Re­my and I have a spe­cial role in the front of­fice of an in­ter­na­tion­al couri­er ser­vice.

Al­though I'm orig­i­nal­ly from Mor­vant, I say I come from Ari­ma. I've been liv­ing there for the past 18 years. Is a woman took me to Ari­ma.

My son, Rober­to, is nine, my daugh­ter Julis­sa is sev­en and then there's She­ma­iah. I'm on my sec­ond mar­riage, to Melis­sa. But she wasn't the one I fol­lowed to Ari­ma.

Mor­vant, for some, is a place to stay away from but, for me, it's where I learnt every­thing: how to be a man; how to pro­vide; how to hus­tle. In Mon Re­pos, you have hills full of man­goes so we get in­to the green-man­go hus­tle.Af­ter man­go, I get the hus­tling bug: I sell pies; or­anges; cot­ton can­dy; nut cake. With a job, you have a steady salary. With hus­tling, you have to push. If you not lazy, you will make.

The on­ly rea­son I left the hus­tle is my first wife told me she want­ed me to have some­thing more se­cure. I re­gret that move. If I had stick with the hus­tle, I would have built some­thing I would have for my­self that was mine.

Don't give up, no mat­ter what, just don't give up. I learn that in Mor­vant.

It's crazy to say Mor­vant is a place where you ei­ther lock up in­side your house or you get lock up if you go out­side. As any­where else in Trinidad, once you roll with the wrong com­pa­ny, you get in prob­lems. Mal­abar is a qui­et place, but it hot right now. Due to cir­cum­stances.

I start­ed off as a Catholic but I'm now Evan­ge­list.

From small, I was big, all, in pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary. I was al­ways short and stocky. I on­ly got my height af­ter sec­ondary school.

Me and my pard­ners used to put two stone in the road and kick ball; now chil­dren play­ing foot­ball on com­put­er. Chil­dren don't grow up feel­ing free any more.

Back in the day, I used to throw mon­ey on my bed, pull in the door, and I gone! Me ent lock­ing no door. Now you have to put bur­glar-proof every­where you could think to put it.

I en­joyed school. I ain't no Ein­stein. But I tried.

Af­ter the Bible, Seabis­cuit is my favourite book. Al­though I nev­er read much books. Read­ing does put me to sleep. But I have an A1 dis­tinc­tion in Eng­lish.

I used to take part in Car­ni­val when I was much younger. Like, much younger: play­ing with Nel­son Street Boys.

Work hard for what you want. My grand­moth­er taught me that.

I love watch­ing movies but I don't go cin­e­ma: home is my thing. I could rock back home. In­cep­tion is a very good movie but some peo­ple wouldn't get it.

With my job, you must know pub­lic re­la­tions, a lit­tle bit of psy­chol­o­gy, you must know how to speak prop­er­ly. And you have to be hon­est and on the ball all the time.

You deal with dif­fi­cult peo­ple. But the cus­tomer is al­ways right. So you must be pa­tient. But there's a line drawn: if they start to get abu­sive or use ob­scene lan­guage, they have to leave the com­pound. Ei­ther you leave vol­un­tar­i­ly or I phys­i­cal­ly move you. Such sit­u­a­tions are very few and far be­tween. If we get once for the year, we get plen­ty.

Fake is some­thing I just can't do. Is take too much en­er­gy to pre­tend. You don't like me? Come to me re­al and tell me. I will re­spect you for that.

We have to keep an eye out for sus­pi­cious peo­ple who will try any­thing to get their stuff out; and they will try to use us.

The best part about the job is in­ter­act­ing with peo­ple. I wouldn't say there's a bad part, I'd just say that, as in the Bible, where Paul was giv­en a thorn in his side, to buf­fet him and keep him hum­ble, I have a thorn in my side.

A Tri­ni is di­verse in every­thing and can fit in every­where.

T&T means warmth, home, life and fam­i­ly to me. No mat­ter how bad things get, you could still come out on a Fri­day and drink a beer. But I will drink mines home.

Read a longer ver­sion of this fea­ture at www.BCRaw.com