Marcia Guido

My name is Marcia Diana Guido, and I was born here. In some ways, growing up on Saba was nice, in some ways it was hard. Saba was always known to be together, very friendly, family-oriented and all that. And so, we spent a lot of time with family. I came from a very large family in Saba, but there was also hard times, you know? It wasn't like how Saba is now, that was many years back.

I met my husband here and we got married here and stayed here for 25 years. And then he decided he wanted his own business. So we purchased a bill, a restaurant here. And we did that for the last maybe 14 years. But then he passed away, and I just leased the place to different people. We've had it now for like 37 years, we've had Guido's Place.

A few years ago a friend of mine, she used to come here and she talked me into joining Saba Lace. I had never done it before. I had always crocheted, but I never did the Saba Lace. And so I joined it to learn it. Crochet is completely different to doing the Saba Lace. I learned crochet in school but the Saba Lace, we didn't learn that. School was more for crocheting and doing machine sewing, stuff like that.

I can always remember growing up with mommy always sitting and doing the Saba Lace. I wish I had learned years ago like the rest. You know, I could have known more about it. You have to have good eyesight, because you have to be counting threads the whole time as you pull them out and then you have to put it back in, you know, and to me that becomes a little difficult. No wonder I never did it before. But I enjoy it and we put it here. Right here in the corner. I have my own Saba Lace. And I enjoy the company of the ladies here that come in every Thursday to just meet, talk, and share our latest work that we do. That I enjoy. Sometimes we have visitors who just come by and sit and watch what we're doing. And the ladies here, they joined and they learned how to do it, you know? And we all help each other. I look forward to that.

If you love to dive and hike, Saba's perfect for that. And it's easy to get around, you know, if you don't have transportation, somebody will give you a ride wherever you're going. And we have nice restaurants here that you can have a nice meal in, and I find it's nice for tourists. You know, the diving is fantastic here. And I think it's a pretty good island to visit and come on a little vacation even if it's just a week. Or we get lots of day-trippers that come and everybody's friendly, you know?