AS TOLD TO BC PIRES

My name is Dominique Bain and I am a veterinarian who loves working with dogs and cats.

I hardly hear Bajans with the name B-a-i-n. In Barbados, it’s normally B-a-y-n-e. Whenever I hear of a Bain, they always say they’re from Grenada. A lot of my family is from Grenada.

I’m very proud to be from MALABAR, ARIMA! I lived there all my life, up until the time I left to go to Belize and Barbados. My mom Merlyn Bain moved to Trinidad from Grenada when she was nine. My dad Everett Bain is from Morvant. He passed away in 2019 and it was rough because I’d already took the blow of my [elder] sister’s passing.

My mom told me my dad always used to admire her when he passed her by the corner every day, waiting for transportation, her long legs in her miniskirt, her slim figure – and her big butt! He eventually shot his shot and it worked out. I’m the last of five children, the baby. And I behave like the baby ALL the time. My brother before me is seven years older than me.

I always used to joke with a work friend that he needed to find me a Bajan man ‘cause I love the accent. I didn’t think he was taking me seriously because, well, I wasn’t serious. And then he introduced me to my boyfriend Pierre Thompson-Lewis, a graphic artist. It wasn’t supposed to be anything. But that was 2016 and now we’re in 2022 and I live in Barbados with him!

I grew up Roman Catholic and always went to church. When my sister passed away before she turned 30, my faith was really shattered. But I kinda always felt this strong force – like God – was telling me not to sever my ties with him. I’m definitely not hyper-religious but I do think there is a superior being, something that has logic and reasoning above your own. That’s what God is to me.

I hated school from kindergarten all the way up to university. Primary school was Newtown Girls RC. I enjoyed it but I don’t mean the school part. I had fun and I’m not the most social person.

Secondary school was five years at St James Sec, coming all the way from Arima, every single day, my dad waking us up all four o’clock in the morning! We leaving the house by 4.45am. And, when it was time to travel, we had to get up even earlier again. I HATED it.

After St James Sec, I went to Arima Comprehensive, now Arima North, and, yeah! I really enjoyed “this ghetto school in Arima” the most out of my whole student experience. I was the student council president and really got my chance to – I don’t want to say “shine”, that’s a weird word – to be part of something I think was a big deal, making change in a school that people looked down on.

The first week at Arima Comprehensive, they tried to burn down a classroom, they threw a dustbin out of [a second-floor window], they had fights. Rambunctious like that. Speaking up for students, showing the school was much more than a [place] delinquents come out of, shedding light on the students who excelled. I enjoyed that ability to serve the school. And I came out of that school with a distinction in chemistry!

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