As told to BC Pires
My name is Linda Daniel and I make jewels from coconut pieces, coral, seashells and haematite stone I find on the beach in Tobago.
I come from a small family: my mom, my stepfather, two sisters and myself and a brother. I’m the eldest for my mother. I have a 14-year-old daughter, Lauralee Greene, and a five-year-old son, Antonio Glasgow.
My days, growing up in Parlatuvier was really fun. We didn’t know anything about KFC. We go to the beach, is like we picking green mangoes to make chow. And we bury that green mango in the sand, so it will get hot.
We even used to thief Mummy’ Golden Ray and go down on the beach and roast breadfruit and drink lime juice. My kids don’t know nothing ‘bout that! They want a box of KFC. And you find restaurants and bars on the beach now. But the Golden Ray and breadfruit taste much better, taste like heaven!
I went to Castara Government Primary and hen, at the age of six or so, I further all my studies at the Parlatuvier Anglican School, right on the beachfront. Days when the sea get really rough, it will wash up all underneath the school. And they had was to close off school when we had rough sea days.
I was in a bad accident in 2008 coming from Mount Dillon on the lookout. The driver probably fell asleep and the car plunge straight over the cliff. Me and my daughter were a passenger in the back seat with a other passenger in the back seat. Two persons died on the spot, the lady in the front and the person in the back seat.
Really mashed up! The driver is silent-mad right now. Me and my daughter had was to crawl from the precipice to come up to the main road. I get injuries on my face and hands but I didn’t get any broken bones. They rushed me to the emergency room, the doctors get two heart beat. I was pregnant with my son! It’s a miracle why me and my two kids are here for today.
Since the accident, I have this thing that I’m not pretty any more. Because of the scars on my face. But me and my two kids are living a second life and that’s my story.
I go to Trinidad to buy materials sometimes but don’t spend much time. I have structured my life to be self-employed so that I can have time with my kids. I don’t leave my kids with anybody unless it’s and emergency, I leave them with my mom.
I love rough weather when the sea comes up in Parlatuvier and Bloody Bay: so I can go on the beach and get my seashells, my driftwood pieces, which I use sometimes to do some of my jewel, sea fan also. When I go home, as soon as I get a little spare time, I make jewel. Sometime I go out with my kids to football, I will sit down, because I always have my material with me in my vehicle, and I will make up some earring pieces. Most of my pieces is one-of-a-kind pieces.
When guests come to the island, they not looking to buy jewels from China. They’re looking to buy stuff from here. I am good with my mouth and am able to sell my business.
I’m making jewel ten-15 years now, self-taught, I have never gone to a class anywhere to learn how to do it. But now I have the privilege of teaching classes to schools. And to adults, community development-wise.
Although I haven’t travelled as yet, I’m all over the world: because my pieces have gone all over the world!
When you have the idea in your head and it come out to reality, that is the best part of the job. The bad part is when I’m not getting the material to do what I want.
I prefer Tobago a hundred per cent to Trinidad. Especially for my kids. We sleep with our back door open. In Trinidad, you want to trust people, but you don’t know who to trust. In Tobago, it’s more like one family, everybody knows everybody.
Tobagonians are good with our hands, meaning: sweet food!
T&T on the whole is all about culture, all about freedom.