My name is Victor Siveors and I’m a mechanical bull groom. They really call me Sharkie.I’m from the Ivy, Government Hill. I leave the Ivy now and gone to the Garrison in 1975, for years. I was in Trinidad, too, minding horses. That’s how I got the bullfighting in me. I come from a very good and very wealthy family. But I like “get-down” life.I ain’t got no family for myself. I ain’t got no regret about not having children. I would rather take care of somebody else child that born already than one that will born from me. I was a going-church man from ever since. The Siveors born in church, grew up in church. I don’t go any more but I pray every morning and night. I praise my God in my way.
I went to St George Boys & Girls in the Ivy. I’ll tell you from my heart, I didn’t like school. My thing is more in the activity line, like how I got the children moving with cows and thing like that. Mechanical cows, mechanical horse, thing like that. Next year, I want to get a mechanical horse to groom. I used to see horses all the time in the Garrison. I was a horse groom and still am a horse groom. Now I’m also a mechanical cow groom. Horses make me lost interest in school. I get to like horses more than anything else. I even went Trinidad with horses, in 1989. I remain in Trinidad five years, taking care of horses in Arima. Is more different to Barbados because we get paid more. Is $100 in that time for one horse in Trinidad. In Barbados, it was only $80-something a horse. Bajan money is worth more than Trinidad money but you get more for your dollar in Trinidad and I like living in Trinidad. I came back from Trinidad in 1994 and, since then, I’m still dealing with horses, still dealing with mechanical cows and thing like that. Making myself activity.
My relaxation is on a Sunday. I go on the beach, right in front of Errol Barrow, the Prime Minister’ office. What we do on a Sunday, we cooks and we roast fish, breadfruit. Relax we-self. Whole day, until 9 o’clock in the night. Drink ‘nuff rum. Me, the girls, the boys, everybody. I like Kitchener and Rose and Shadow and Arrow and them time in Trinidad. They got very few Bajan calypsonians. Red Plastic Bag ’s my favourite. Gabby ’s my number two. Then they got a guy that’s sing like Black Stalin but he don’t show his face regular. Very good singer, can’t remember his name. Call him Bajan Black Stalin.Music like Gregory Issac, Burning Spear, I like. If you come to modern dancehall, I don’t like it. I don’t promote it, I don’t play it, I don’t dance to it. If it play here, I gone! If you play that, you’ll get a big crowd. But, after the crowd, what you got? People pelting bottles, people shooting in the air, “Pie! Pie! Pie!” I don’t like that. It’s a violent music and I’m a peaceful man.
I got blonde hair. I got a white lady, she’s my girlfriend, and she like me in blonde, and I love to be blonde. Because somebody could say, I just pass there, I didn’t do them nothing.They got some other people will put their head in blonde to cover up and do wickedness. What I do, I get people to ride the mechanical cow. Show the kids how to ride it, things like that. If they get scared, I get on with them, tell them, “Hold the rope! Do what you gotta do!” And they start to laugh and thing like that. I could ride that mechanical cow slow-speed, fast-speed, any speed. I fell from that mechanical bull ’bout 16 times. That’s going fast-speed. It got a little trick in it that is hook you like a real bull in the bullfighting ring. But, when you fall, you fall on the cushion, and wouldn’t hurt yourself. I don’t like movies. They carry ’way children. Years ago, we got Bud ‘n’ Lou making joke. We had a lot of Flintsone. Now, if you watch movies, they got a man putting a gun in your face. What’s that going to teach the children? My mother coulda never buy me a toy gun. But walk the street today, see how much kids got a toy gun in they hand. They wouldn’t got a balloon. They wouldn’t got a horse. They got a toy gun. And, if you don’t be careful, they doing you so, “Bam! Bam!” Barbados change a lot. You coulda roast flying fish on Browne’s Beach. Now all you seeing is bad boys playing football. If you kick ‘way the football, they want to kill you. That’s why we old men hold our part in front of Errol Barrow’ office. I don’t think I’m a Bajan. I think I’m a West Indian. All o’ we are one in the West Indies. I travel to Trinidad, St Vincent, St Lucia, all over Guyana. I carry food to Dominica after the hurricane. So I would say a West Indian is a man who government is the whole of the West Indies, who represent the whole West Indies, who the whole of the West Indies is his home.
Barbados mean to me my old grandparents. Them is the real Bajans. Check a Bajan now: Kentucky & Chefette. Check my old grandmother: eddoes; dasheen; yam; potato; breadfruit. Right now, it ain’t no more Barbados. Is fast food.
