Seasonal Agricultural Worker from Jamaica, working at E-Z Grow
I’m Nicholas. I’ve been coming to Canada from Jamaica for the last nine years. I’ve been working for E-Z Grow for five years. They grow strawberry plants. I come some years in March and some years in April.
I never knew anything about strawberries before so since I started here, I’ve learned a lot.
I also think – no I know – that I’m working for one of the best families in the program. I’m lucky to be working here. I love them and I know they love us. I love coming here and working in Canada.
A friend of mine back in Jamaica introduced me to this seasonal worker program. I said I wanted to give it a try. The first year that I came, I remember thinking that I wanted to go back home the next day. I had never been away from my family so long. But as the time passes, I’ve gotten used to it. Back home are my wife, my 12 year old son and my sister. My mom lives in the States. I talk to my family every day.
A friend here introduced me to basketball. I started watching the game and thought oh, I love the Raptors and I love to watch them play. I haven’t been to a game yet – I only watch them on television. When I get back home and they are playing, I follow them from Jamaica too.
For fun, I like to play soccer. Before the pandemic, we used to have a soccer competition with some of the other farms. We never won the competition – we lost in the semifinals two years. Hopefully, if the pandemic goes away, we can play in it again. But here on the farm, our boss made a field for us to play on.