AS BAJAN AS FLYING FISH – The sweet life

My name is Patrick White and I’m a pastry chef.   I was born and raised here in Barbados. My mum is Swiss, my Dad is Barbadian.     I learned Swiss-German. Which is like what “Bajan” is to “English”. Most people think my wife is from Trinidad. She’s very pretty. And has a French twang to her tongue. I always thought the Trinidadians are the French of the Caribbean. You can say anything in Trini and it sounds good, just like you can say anything in French and it sounds good.    I played in two roots-reggage bands in Switzerland, Swiss musicians, and really enjoyed it. I always wrote poetry or songs, was always creative.     I wrote a calypso this year, called, “A Tune”: I always wanted to write a tune/ To make the people-them dance/ This year is the year I decide/ I go take a chance”. It’s a tune about a tune. Phone in and request it.     I wanted to be a vet, go to Guelph University. It was extremely expensive and, because I’m not Canadian, I couldn’t work either. So I ended up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The Prairies. Minus 30° plus wind chill. They had no law for foreigners. Because there were no foreigners. I was the only one.     I came back home and did some soul-searching and realised I wouldn’t be becoming a vet. It also hit me that I didn’t like university.   I still love animals. I grew up on a farm. I milked cows before I went to school. Milked cows when I came home from school. Milked cows when I was just at home.  My wife, Noemi, is Swiss, with Hungarian roots.  We’re together for 12 years. Our daughters are Tamina and Yana. Tamina is a name my wife got out of an old story. She actually remembered it wrong. It’s spelled with an ‘o’, Tomino. But we kept it.   I don’t have a faith. I’m not against anything. I’m just more spiritual than religious. I believe in a higher power but I don’t have a name for that power.       I don’t think I experienced a race relations problem growing up in Barbados. The only misconception is, if you’re of my complexion, people assume you have money. In our case, it wasn’t that. We weren’t poor, but we weren’t rich.  I’ve never felt less Bajan than anyone else because of my complexion. I’ve actually felt more Bajan because, growing up in the country, on a farm, eating real ground provisions – that kind of life made me feel real connected to Barbados than a lot of people who might feel they’re more Bajan than I am.       There are certain ways, as a black person, you can act, that people get the vibe that you don’t speak to a certain class of black people, although you are black yourself. And there are certain whites who have that vibe, too. Whereas there are those who are very open with everyone.      In the countryside, it’s simple: anyone wearing nice clothes walking is going to the bus stop. You have a car that’s empty, you give them a lift.     We live on the land. We have six acres. Nothing pretty about it at all. It’s all bush. No cultivated lawns and landscaping. There’s a river behind the house. For me and my wife and the kids, it’s beautiful.     My mum can live in the kitchen. She doesn’t do the same thing twice. So, after the whole university, veterinarian thing got out of my head, I asked myself what I really liked to do. And it boiled down to cooking.  I trained three years in Basel, Switzerland. I did confectionery, patisserie and bakery. Sweets, cakes and bread. Sugar work.     I started out as a chef but the working hours clashed with the band. I was at Schloss-Binnigan, a top restaurant. I started with the salads, a full salad menu. No one spoke English and I got ten different salad orders shouted at me at one time. I coped. But the guy working right next to me talked to me. A pastry chef starts really early in the morning, 3 a.m., but, by 11 o’clock or midday, you’re finished. And that suited me fine. I could make band practice.    I am the housewife. I do the kids’ lunch, dinner for the family. I enjoy it. Twelve years so far, no complaints yet.    I am working for myself and can choose what I do and when I do it. My first two years, I was like a prostitute. I just did what everyone asked. Christmas Day, you phone me, I say yes. Now, I’ve minimised and maximised, cut out the little things and just do certain jobs     I could be earning a lot more but that’s not really important to me. The quality of life I have with my kids is more important than anything else.     I stay far from the sweet stuff myself. So I guess I don’t look like the average pastry chef. Some things I do, I don’t even know what they taste like.     If there’s a down side to being a pastry chef, it’s financial. And that’s great, to me. If that’s the only problem my family has, we’re doing real good. Modern day Bajans are adapted to the fast lifestyle. Eat junk food. Buy food instead of cooking it. You can’t even show them a breadfruit or a yam, they think that’s going backwards. The traditional Bajans I admire are those that come up with very little, have large families, send each one to school, each one gets a good job. And they live together and get the house bigger and bigger. That’s the Bajan I would like to recommend.     Barbados is definitely a home for me, my kids and my wife.