My name is Tyrone Marville and I make surfaces level.
I’m really a St Michael’s man. Went to Wesley Hall Boys’ and Richmond’s.
Up to now, as a big man, I still remember school days as the best days. You don’t appreciate it until you left it.
I played cricket for my school. My top score was, let’s say, 30, 35, 40. I wouldn’t try to exaggerate. I could do anything ’pon a cricket field: bat, bowl, field, wicketkeep. I could even umpire. Because I know the rules of the game!
I give somebody out lbw, you better believe they out!
I don’t like what’s happening in West Indies cricket now, but it’s not really the cricketers of themselves that at fault. You should change the West Indies Cricket Board so that no one body is in charge.
Is not about bossing people around, is about doing the right thing. People just come together and make the right decisions. No favouritism, nothing of that sort. So you pick the best team that is available at the time. Even if is six Bajans or six Guyanese. Because you looking to win.
It don’t bother me that Guyanese or Trinidadians or Jamaicans come to live and work in Barbados. Because whenever I travel, other Caribbean people treat me nice. So I return the favour.
When you meet someone from St Kitts, St Vincent, Tobago, Jamaica, he just like you. Just maybe a little difference in accent. Might be a little different Creole food, too, because everybody got they own thing; but, when you taste it, you enjoy it. Simple as that.
I’m all for Caribbean unity. If we don’t come together, it ent going work. Because the big fish will eat we up for real.
I been a Rastaman for thirty-something years now and I’m a religious Rasta, not a style Rasta and I love my faith. It make me know what I know now, and still learning, because, every day, life is a teacher.
Twelve Tribes is my faith, but I don’t always eat ital. I might bring to work cream potato and lamb stew. Because I work hard and eat good. According to me. And I don’t fight nobody for living their heart’s desire.
My parents were Christian. When I went Rasta, my mum was a little vexed. But she learn to accept it. ’Cause she see the change in me and she see I was serious.
When I first went Rasta, it was like a crime. Everybody fight you down. Nowadays, everywhere you look, from oldest to youngest wearing natty dread. People more accepting now.
I have a boy and a girl and two grands. My daughter ent got no children. My son is who doing the damage.
I don’t live with my kids’ mum. Life goes on. And I wouldn’t try to stop it.
I didn’t raise my children Rastafarian. They got their choice, too.
All Rastaman don’t smoke. But I don’t see nothing wrong with marijuana at all. Is a plant that grow. Created by God. How could it be a crime, and rum and cigarettes is not a crime?
There are them who feel they should make all the money. As you born poor, you should stay poor. You should be always under bondage.
I drink a little drink when I’m ready. A whisky, a brandy, a vodka. You living life, drink a drink. Just try not to go over the limit and make yourself foolish.
Every day, you learn something.
Aim for the stars. If you fall down, get up, dust off you pooch and move to hell along. Don’t stop there and cry.
I used to take part in Crop Over. But, nowadays, I more watch it on TV. But I still listen to the music and hail for my man Kid Site to win. RPB is the king. Nobody can’t beat he. Whoever sing good music, I backing. If you singing garbage, I not going down that road. I love Adrian Clarke and Blood, too.
I read my Bible. A chapter a day, it takes you about three and a half years to read the whole thing if you doesn’t cheat. I read it twice. All that define my knowledge, too.
You strive for perfection, but you can’t reach it. Only one man can and that’s God heself.
You do the job of levelling to make sure, when you finish the job, no water settles any place. You wouldn’t get what you call “bird baths” for birds to come and bathe.
Surveyors put down levels for we, but we got to use your own intuition sometimes. Sometimes we go ’pon jobs and we level it without surveyors. Sometimes. Not a lot.
The good parts of the job is you meet new people every day and you travel all over and get to know Barbados more. The onliest bad part of the job is the wages.
A Bajan, for me, is one of the nicest people in the world. But don’t get them vexed!
Barbados was always my home and it always will be. I wouldn’t change it for nothing in the world. Wherever I go, I have to come back home.
Email bc@caribsurf.com