Percival Ten-Holt

My name is Percival Ten-Holt. I was born in Saba in 1944. I lived here until I was 13, then I left and I went to Curacao, then to Holland, back to Curacao, then to the States, Mexico, back to Curacao, and then finally I came home in early 1983. I am proud to be a Saban. My ancestors was Irish and Scottish and Dutch. My grandfather was a Dutchman from Holland. Ten-Holt is my title, and my mother was Irish.

Growing up on Zion's Hill, it was nice. I grew up here with my mother and my brother. I used to live down the road in front of the supermarket, and I used to go to school without shoes. It wasn't like these days. If we killed a goat we'd eat the fresh meat that day, and the rest was salted and put on the roof. If I came from playing and my mother said take down a piece of meat for her to put it in brown sugar to extract the salt, and I didn't do it, we didn't eat that day. So I know it now. Those are the things you learn when living here in Saba. It wasn't so easy those days. We cooked on three rocks. We had three rocks and my mother would cook but she knew exactly how much wood to put — three sizes of the wood, 1, 2, 3. And she'd put on the food, light it, go do the work in the house, come back and just push in the wood, go again. When the wood was finished the food was finished.

I remember the day we had our first stove, a kerosene stove. That was like Christmas. We had oil lamps, and in the road they used to put up lamps. The government had people that used to go around and put up lights so people would see where to go. But the lights were taken down from 6, and that was it. Ten o'clock, everybody was asleep. Now these days, the dance begins at 12 o'clock [laughs]. It was really really nice here in those days, but time changes.

Saba is one of the jewels of the Caribbean. We're still unspoiled. I used to work for the marine park, Saba Marine Park. I was the first ranger in the park. And I worked there for 18 years. My time wasn't the digital stage, it was pick and shovel. These roads here were built with pick and shovel and dynamite. This road here was a road that could not be built. And my neighbor built it. When they're making the road, he would say, "Do not smooth it." They don't make it so smooth that the Jeep's tires couldn't grip in it. If it's too smooth, you can't grip. So we used to call him, "Don't make it too smooth."

I don't know what the future is, but I know who holds the future. Those are things that matter. Everybody isn't the same. So I'm glad you came along and heard my part of the story, and every story is going to be different.