My name is Pamela Mohammed and I own an electronics store.
I come from Couva but now live in Valsayn. I’ve been married 20 years now.
I was very much a tomboy. Playing tennis and football for hours, like from 11 am until five, six in the afternoon. I was very athletic. Now it’s the total opposite.
Unfortunately, I don’t have any children. But I still hope. We focussed on our jobs. My pace was always so busy. Sitting down with a child really, really slows you down.
I don’t believe your education is your total package of who you are or where you want to be in life. Because I’ve seen people who have not had a university or even a secondary education and they’re very successful people.
I did early childhood learning at university but, after one year, I thought I’d pull my hair out.
You could do the smallest job or the biggest job: if you don’t sacrifice and go the extra mile, you can never be successful.
Every day, there must be some thrill. Otherwise you end up getting old and thinking, “Hey, I missed part of my own life!” My thrill is getting up every morning and eating a healthy breakfast and looking for something exciting to do.
I love to travel! I love Miami because it’s more affordable than London and there’s so much to eat. I love food and there’s so many cultures there, you’re exposed to all kinds of food. You can figure out your palate. I know I love Thai food.
I’ve been to most of the restaurants in Trinidad and have a few favourites, like Angelo’s and Tiki Village. You feel really special when you go to Prime or Chaud. But I love my doubles and pies! There’s a barra-man in Chaguanas and that is one of my husband’s most favourite restaurants.
I started off in the airline industry and was very successful at it. I wasn’t a flight attendant, I worked in sales, in the cargo department. That was the most exciting time of my life: I was able to travel, to be very independent and set my own pace. You were able to build yourself from that.
My passion is really to be a chef. I would like to go to Paris to study doing some nice desserts. I love-love-love sweets.
If anyone wants to experience one place that is the whole world, Vegas is it. You don’t have to be a gambler to go. Gambling is now, like, secondary.
I’ve seen Celine Dion, David Copperfield and others in Vegas. I go every January, for the consumer electronics show. For the past 20 years, vacation is work for me. It’s a lot of walking, nine in the morning to six in the evening for four days, but you look forward to the top-of-the-line dinners.
In 20 years, I’ve had one vacation where everything was excluded: no phone calls, no e-mails. Widespread buffet breakfast, ten in the morning you drinking beers and cocktails, whole day you just relaxing: Cancun was the best vacation I ever had.
We started off pretty high-end but high-end is a smaller portion in Trinidad. The majority of the population who would stay here and buy, rather than go away and shop for themselves, want mid-range.
Trinidadians are very trendy. They like new things, not old things. So you end up with a lot of “old” stock you have to sell at a loss to clear.
People come into our store and are blown away. It’s like a man’s haven. You get excited when you see so much product line under one roof.
The best part of the job is being the leader in the market place. The bad part is the competition, people smuggling and laundering, and you have to compete with those prices. They’re not paying full duties. You have to really work your business. You have to be aggressive. And you have to go to Vegas to see what’s going on.
Trinis are compassionate people who appreciate their culture. And anybody who could hang with a Trini becomes a Trini.
T&T is where I belong. Foreigners want to give up everything and come live here.
Read a longer version of this feature at www.BCRaw.com