My name is Mauricia Smith-Grimshaw and I run an office supplies store.
I was born and grew up all my life in the village of Lambeau in Tobago. Then I got married and moved to Canaan. But I lived in Buccoo and Buccoo is the best. One of these days I hope to purchase a piece of land there and build my own home in Buccoo.
My daughter’s name is Shanique. And my husband’s name is Anthony. We’ve been married about eight, nine years. Marriage is an honourable thing and an interesting journey. It’s a sacrifice between both. My saying is, “It takes two to make a marriage work: I didn’t get married to myself”. And also communication. And, most importantly, God at the head.
It’s a very Tobagonian thing: to own a piece of Tobago. And to plant. Long ago, behind every home there was a garden, but that is not really so today. My grandmother still has a little kitchen garden. But we are more into the instant market. We even start to import basically everything from Trinidad. People will go down (to Trinidad) with their van and come up with they goods, tomatoes, their this, their that. But people used to plant their cassava.
I want to live in Buccoo because of Buccoo itself, not because of (well-known daylong party) Sunday School. The only Sunday School I attend is the proper, Biblical one at our church.
When you look around at how simple everything is, even the rain, you have to believe in God. Sometime you will be driving in one area, rain falling, as you get out, like two minutes (later), rain stop! Stop and see how awesome that is!
I grew up with my grandmother always saying, “Mother have, father have, blessed is the child that has its own. And that is my intention: to have my own.
I don’t smoke or drink. I love to eat shrimps and crab-and-dumpling. I like to cook but my mom is the big chef in the family.
I don’t see Trinidadians settling in Tobago as others in Tobago might see it. For me, it’s a good thing. At the end of the day, we are all one culture, so it is nice to have a diversity of cultures within the island.
I started my business last year August and business has been good. It has been successful. When we started, we did not have uniforms and stuff but, as we progress, stuff keeps adding. School uniforms. I might branch into office uniforms if I get a business deal from THA. That would be nice! I’m hoping to get a piece of land so we can do marketing on a large scale. Then we will have furnitures for office.
The best part of having my business is knowing to myself that it’s not because of anything I have done but because of the leading and direction of God. Also to see that I was able to establish something like this at the tender age of 28. The bad part is it is challenging being an uprising, upcoming business entrepreneur that you don’t get the help you looking for, in terms of you don’t get the suppliers you might want.
I tend to stay out of politics. Church and politics don’t mix. Business and politics don’t mix.
A Tobagonian is somebody born and grew in Tobago, such as myself. Somebody who came from Trinidad 65 years ago at the age of five, when his parents moved to Tobago, who is 70 years old and living all this time in Tobago, I would not consider him as being a Tobagonian. Born and grew!
Trinidad & Tobago still means a lot to me, despite the little crime and all of that. We could still walk down the road and the neighbour see you and give you a ride out. So we are all still meshed as a family.
Read a longer version of this feature at www.BCRaw.com