My name is Olivia Hollingsworth and I’m a front of house restaurant receptionist.
I’m from Haynesville, St James. I live in St Michael now but my childhood days were in Haynesville. There was four of us kids. One boy and three girls. I was the oldest.
I had to take care of the younger ones. I remember when we were living in Bridgetown I had to press all those school clothes on Sunday with an iron you put on the stove, and then you had to get a cloth and clean it off to make sure those clothes were not dirty.
Haynesville was called Thorpe’s Housing Scheme when I grew up. We would break out canes in what is now Wanstead Gardens.
We would suck cane until we belly full. But you know something? It had our teeth so pretty!
Bird-pecked fruits taste great. And they didn’t make us sick at all.
On Sundays, we had to get our hair washed in castor oil and the brown or the white Vaseline. With a steel comb. And you had to keep quiet because, if you put your fingers up there,
your mum would knock you on your hand.
I went to St John the Baptist Primary School, then St John the Baptist Senior and then on to St Leonard’s in Richmond Gap.
I was Methodist at one point but I wouldn’t say I’m religious now. I have faith, not religion. I know there are Christians, Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hindus – but I believe there’s just one God. I’m sorry to say, but I don’t go to church. I have my own personal church. I’m serious. My godly belief is Psalm 23 and the Ten Commandments. I go by that.
I enjoyed school very much. Those days, it was different. The teachers was like mother and father to you. It wasn’t that they beat you more: they cared more for you. What your mother and father didn’t do for you, teachers would do for you.
Even some of us who didn’t have anything to eat, the teachers would make sure to give us something from their own lunch.
I remember going to school barefooted. I grew up poor but most of my friends were poorer than me. I had shoes but some of my friends didn’t have shoes, and I wanted so much to be like them and with them that I put my shoes in my school bag.
My mother had bought me a Panama hat. It had flowers on the side of it and a bow to the back. I hated that hat, because it was different.
I had to wear it from home. When I get to school, I take it off. That’s what she could have afforded at that time.
I don’t have children as such but I raise one of my nieces and she has two babies now.
I love those kids to death. I call them my grands. Zachary love me to call him “Sweet Boy Leroy” and I call Zarique “Pumpkin”.
My niece calls me mummy – because I raise her from a baby.
My daughter’s name is Rasheeda Sharika. I just like that name so I give her.
Up to last night, I had to sing the song for Zachary I used to sing to put him to sleep, Sweet Boy Leroy. Because he see me with the baby all the time. I think the mother getting a little jealous, too. Sometimes she will say, “I was here first!”
I just came back from Miami, where my girlfriend Diana lives. We raise up together.
We talked about where we had this dollhouse under a little bush. We made a hole and whatever toys we had, we would put it in there. We would go in there and play with dollies. I have a better standard of living now than what I grew up in but I do reminisce. Those days were sweeter than these.
Diana has a/c in her whole house. I tell her, “Di, open the windows. Let me feel the wind.” I went and stood up outside to feel the sun.
One year Diana and I got away from home and went Tamarind Cove and say we going to ride these waves.
This big wave came. Can’t swim; can’t dive. I say I diving. Then I find I can’t stand up.
There were some guys on the beach and they ran in. I panicking; I nearly drown the guy who was trying to save me.
He’s a chef at a hotel now. We were about 18 at that time.
We sat on the beach, not moving because we were too embarrassed. When we got home, our parents knew already. But it wasn’t any lashes though.
If I tell you I’ve been doing this same job with the same people since ’79, you wouldn’t believe it.
I answer the telephone, make reservations and do a bit of hostess in taking customers to the table and seating them.
The best thing about the job is meeting people. I love to interact.
I didn’t learn to be polite to do my job. That’s naturally me. I’m a very nice person . . . until . . .
I can lose my temper. Because I can’t tolerate nonsense. If I do lose my temper and I know I’m wrong, I know within myself
I should apologise but I won’t want to. I’ll work around it until I say, “Well, I’m sorry”. But, deep down, I don’t want to.
There is no bad side to my job. Sometimes grumpy customers come in and I can calm them down.
A real Bajan is a person who would tell you like it is in a flash. And, next minute, turn around and ask you, “Man, we’s we, you know! We’s we!”
Barbados is my island, my home, my everything. I do travel but there’s no place like Barbados. I can go away for one week and wouldn’t miss it so bad, but two weeks? I want to get back home!
