My name is Jason Mills and I’m a driver with the Tobago House of Assembly. I’m from Black Rock. Fort Bennet Street. The one with the fort. And the history. Is kind of strange: when you live next to the beach, you tend not to go as much.
My mother was mother-and-father, and she had a hard time with me. I used to run from school when I was ten and go to the beach. What saved me sometimes, from licks, was I used to put food on the table. I dive and use the spear-gun. Sometimes I throw the line. I would feel good when I come home with a pigtail bucket full of jacks and anchovy. Because I know that would feed the whole house and more.
I never went on after primary school. I didn’t pass my exam, so I went off to Mt St George Youth Camp. I was about 16, 17 then. I did my Common Entrance when I was about 14, 15. You would have gotten two chances and I failed two chances. You don’t realise, at the age of ten, 11, 12, 13, the importance of school. That’s the consequence I suffered of not having a father around.
To this day, I don’t even know what my father looks like. Never met him. He died, I understood. I didn’t self know how to cry, because I didn’t know him.
A lot of people have migrated to Tobago so villages, now, are mixed up with born Tobagonians and maybe a Grenadian, a Guyanese, an American, a Jamaican, Germans. It has changed the village. The first thing these people want to do is secure their spot. When, long time, we used to pass through to go to a specific plum tree, a chennette tree, if it was in somebody’s yard, you would ask to pick two mango. You can’t do that now. Because everybody is fenced up and have a big dog.
Not having a father is an unanswered question. Piece of you is lost.
My mother used to take me to Trinidad to visit family. There was an area called Coney Island, rides to go on, the cartwheel, little horses going round. She had my brother in her hand and me on her back. And there was such a big crowd at the gate, and they were pushing her so hard that, one time, my brother came out of her hand. I was really small.
In this crowd, there was this funky, perspiring smell. And that smell stayed with me until today. From that moment to now, I never liked crowds. So I spend a lot of time with myself. Which gives me time to think.
I’ve never put a lot of thought into whether we have an afterlife. I try my best to concentrate on the moments we have now. If you take a bottle water that you buy for $6 to the petrol station and fill it with petrol, it does not come up to $6. So we pay more now for water than petrol. When I was younger, water was cool from the pipe! It’s not just you alone: it’s a whole world of other people.
I’m a driver with the THA. Events like Jazz, Blue Food, I will pick executives up from the airport, I would take sometimes a school to the clinic. The job is driving but the assignment changes and every day is different and fun.
Tobago people are not racist: they’re very protective of their own. I’ve encountered people who say Indian people shouldn’t move to Tobago. I’ve encountered Indian people talking about Tobago people. But, when you listen to the both and do your assessment, you realise it’s just people trying to find a comfort zone and a little space for themselves.
I keep myself informed, I listen to it –but I don’t like politics. You can be a normal person and make social change. You don’t have to dress up in a jacket-and-tie to make a difference. You see good people go into politics and get stupid. It can do a lot of damage to people who don’t have the discipline to deal with money and power. The best part about the job is getting paid, man.
A Tobagonian is somebody who you could get a plate of food from! Whether is dumpling and dasheen alone! Trinidad & Tobago means, to me, sister-brother: Family. If we focus on that, we’d be a better place.