My name is Kathy-Ann Reece, and I maintain lift sewerage plants.
I was born in Spooner’s Hill. But we moved out to live in the country and is only recently, since we got adults, we moved back into Spooner’s Hill.
I wouldn’t say I know Barbados well. But I know it okay.
St George is countryside. Growing up there was all right. More quiet. More homey. You get to go through gullies. There was a gully below we that, if you go through this gully, you get to Workman’s.
I went to Lawrence T. Gay. School was all right. I enjoyed recess more than school, though.
I have three sisters, no brothers. I’m the second girl. Carolyn is the oldest. Then after me is Karen and then Tracia is the last one.
I have one daughter, Rachele. She has a son, Renir. So I’m a grandmother. My grandson will be two in June. I’s the only one had one girl. All the rest of my sisters have daughters too. Carolyn has a grandson and Karen has a granddaughter. But Tracia ain’t have any as yet.
When my family get together, there ain’t no room for anybody else. We took my mother [out] for Mother’s Day.
It was Karen and she five children and granddaughter; then me and my daughter and grandson; then there was Carolyn and her five children and her grandsonand son-in-law.
Then we had a cousin. I have a best friend, Jackie – she is like a sister; she was there with her daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend and their daughter.
My mum is about 55 now. We have a big, happy family. Everybody tries to get along.
I learn a lot from Carolyn. She learn me how to read cricket. I see men batting and I ent know a thing about it. But Carolyn taught me how to know about the innings, the overs, all sorts of things.
I would love to see people in Barbados drive more carefully. Recently we had three deaths. People don’t like to humble on the road. They just feel, “If this body cut in front of you, man, I got to pass he back out.” But these roads too small for everybody to get on so.
I don’t really follow West Indies cricket. They get out so quick, I get tired of watching them.
I was only recently baptized. I wanted to give my life to God.
If you start to move a certain way, people will say you’re mad. I witness it at work already: I reading my Bible and people saying, “Don’t mind Kathy, she going off!” But it ent that you going off; you more conscious what going on in your head and you are guided by the Spirit.
I watch ’nuff dramas.
I watch a drama a time; it was really nice; it named If Only, I think.
I heard Osama bin Laden got shot by the Americans but I didn’t really follow it up. I think is a good thing, if is really true that he got killed.
I took a Caribbean cruise two years ago. I went Dominica, Antigua, lots of places. I couldn’t tell the difference sometimes. Caribbean people is Caribbean people; everybody so nice and friendly. Nothing like the Caribbean, boy!
We have a couple of lift stations. The sewerage plant is in Harmony Hall, but lift stations are different.
I’m based at the new model sewerage plant. But I go out to maintain the lift plants every day. We usually do one plant a day.
We cut the grass and keep inside and surroundings clean. Move vines and so on. We don’t get anybody throwing rubbish inside, though.
The lift stations are secure compounds. So, when we come out to work, we walk with the key.
Sometimes the pumps get choke and the sewerage will spill. And the men will have to come in and clean. These are around the hotels, so the guys come quickly and everything is back to normal.
There are four of us in my crew. Another girl, Risa, then there is Shane and Kirton. Peter – we’s call he “Kirton” for short.
There isn’t a “best thing” about my job because everything about it good. You get to come out the station, you not in one place, you in the open every morning. I don’t like to be confined in one place.
I love my work. It helps me to support myself. So I would say there ain’t no bad thing about my job. I love to be working and got my own money.
I got this job about 11 and a half years ago – when I was about 28.
If it rains very badly, we don’t come out. We’ll do something else.
Let me tell you something: the sun is so hot out here, if I don’t got this hat, is trouble, you hear! 11, 12 o’clock, you feel you will faint! So the last time I travel, I saw this hat and thought it would be good for the sun.
My favourite dish is rice-and-stew and baked pork. Proper pork. My mother is the best cook in Barbados. If she give me mutton soup for lunch, I have to eat it for breakfast.
A Bajan is a very friendly person. Down to earth. Simple, humble, no fuss-up people who love their pork. Anybody who don’t love pork ain’t no Bajan.
You want to leave Barbados and see other places: when you see them, you want come back home.
I couldn’t live nowhere else but Barbados. It very nice.
bc@caribsurf.com
