My name is Ajay Rooplal and I played in the Barbados Cup over Easter.
I’m from Siparia. I know is called, “Sip-Paria”. I never hear anybody call it, “Sipper-Ria”.
I go to Siparia Hindu School. My favourite subject is mathematics. My friend is Mickell. And a next friend is a boy named Shiva. It have girls at the school but I not friends with any. It don’t have any pretty girls in my school.
I come from a family of four. My brother is 14. I am ten. Going on 11. I’m sitting SEA next year and hope to go to Shiva Boys in Penal. My mom is Denise and my dad is Ronald.
I’m a Hindu and I go to temple sometimes. But I’m not vegetarian. I like to eat meat. But I don’t eat beef. Just meat.
My favourite breakfast is Frosted Flakes. I don’t like doubles. My mom doesn’t make doubles. I bought doubles on the street but I didn’t really like it.
I like rice-and-something and a salad for lunch. Maybe rice-and-chicken. But my favourite thing to eat is avocado and sada roti for dinner.
When I grow up, I want to be a footballer. I play striker for the U-13 and the U-10 Cox Coaching School teams. I started playing since I was nine. I scored 20-something goals for the season playing for the club.
My school don’t have any football team. So, to play, I have to go from Siparia to Santa Flora.
That’s take about half-an-hour. I practise every week on Saturdays. Sometimes a weekday too.
I don’t support a team in the English Premiership. Just Real Madrid. I like soca music. But I don’t have a favourite soca singer. I like plenty. Like Kes and Machel.
When I not playing football, I like to watch TV and read storybooks. I like Hardy Boys. Frank and Joe Hardy is detective. I didn’t really like Harry Potter.
The Barbados Cup was the first time I left Trinidad. My parents didn’t go with me. I went with the coaching school. It was plenty of us travelling together. We stayed in a high school. It was very comfortable.
It was exciting to go on a plane for the first time. I looked out the window and saw Trinidad on the ground, even under the clouds. We flew to Barbados early morning and we went home at night. So I get the both experience.
I played four games in Barbados but I didn’t score. But other people did. We got to the semifinal but we got knocked out.
I like to score goals. When I score, I feel happy, excited. I do a celebration: run around, jump up and turn around. Like Christiano Ronaldo, my favourite player.
The best part of the trip was the first game I played, when I actually went on the field. The bad part was when we lost and get knock out.
Barbados is a really nice place. It could be nicer than Trinidad. I like the beaches. We went to plenty beaches, all of them nice, and we bathe in a really nice one. Trinidad nice but it don’t have beaches like Barbados. I don’t know if Tobago beaches as nice as Barbados. I never went Tobago.
I reach Barbados before I reach Tobago.
A Trini is somebody who like to party.
Trinidad and Tobago is a nice place. You could go and relax anywhere.
Read a longer version of this feature at www.BCRaw.com