FROM SELLING PAPER BAGS TO BEING A MICROBIOLOGIST

‘I couldn’t believe I did it’
From selling paper bags and bottles in Jamaica, Dr Phelue Anderson now a molecular microbiologist in Texas

Dr Phelue Anderson at work inside the poultry lab at Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory – Poultry Center.

This is the first in a new series telling the stories of Jamaicans who used education to overcome poverty.

The short walk across the stage at Texas A&M University to collect a doctoral degree seven years ago represented the completion of Jamaican-born Dr Phelue Anderson’s long journey to break free from the stereotypes sometimes associated with people born in poverty.

That journey started many years ago with Anderson selling in the market to help himself through school and rising above numerous challenges.

“When I was about to go across the stage for my doctorate, tears came to my eyes because I couldn’t believe I did it,” said Anderson, who holds a PhD in Poultry Science from Texas A&M University, College Station, a Master of Science in Animal Science, and a Bachelor of Science in Animal Science from Prairie View A&M University.

Today, as a molecular microbiologist at Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory – Poultry Center, he is responsible for, among other things, the supervision and training of laboratory technicians, and isolating and identifying of poultry food-borne pathogen.

He also performs Salmonella Enteritidis testing of poultry eggs, and environmental samples, does molecular/serological diagnostic testing of high-consequence poultry diseases, interprets test results, and prepares reports for clients, as well as performs necropsy of birds and sample collection.

“I realised from early that education was the only way out of poverty,” Anderson said, adding, “a lot of people didn’t believe I could make it, but I didn’t listen to the negatives.”

As the eldest of three children being raised by a single mother struggling to put food on the table, Anderson knew he had to acquire survival skills if he was to make anything of himself.

He grew up in August Town, Shenton, which sits just outside Bog Walk, St Catherine. At first he attended Harewood All-Age School in the parish but later transferred to Tulloch Primary where he sat and passed the then Common Entrance Examination.

But not even that process was without challenge, as Anderson recalled that an error resulted in his name not being published among those who had received a place at a high school. Like most children then who did not pass the Common Entrance he was left to seek a space at a secondary school.

He was extremely disappointed, having put much effort into preparing for the exam. Unable to pay for extra lessons, his teacher, Miss Williams, identified his potential from early and allowed him to attend for free.

Three weeks into attending the then Bog Walk Secondary School, the Ministry of Education realised the error and informed him that he had received a place at Charlemont High School.

Travelling from his home in Shenton to Charlemont High School meant finding taxi fare, which proved more than a challenge for his mother, who worked as a domestic helper and a vendor.

But determined to get to school, Anderson started searching for ways to earn his daily taxi fare and lunch money.

“Some Tuesdays I would skip school to go buy and sell paper bags in the market,” he said, explaining how he would go to the poultry farm at Tulloch Estate to purchase the feed bags and then take them to the market.

“Shopkeepers and vendors would buy it from me to wrap items for sale,” he explained.

The earnings from this would not only help him to get to school but also provide for his family, and when the funds ran out he would walk the four miles to school.

“Some days when I walked to school, by the time I got there the first period would be finished,” he said.

And when selling paper bags did not bring in enough money, Anderson began selling drink bottles as well, which resulted in him getting the nickname ‘bottle boy’ from his schoolmates.

“I would walk around the school and beg soda bottles to sell. I used to be able to trade them in at the tuck shop, but there they wanted to only give me food in exchange for them and what I really wanted was the money to pay the taxi fare to get to school, so most times I would take the bottles to a shop that was near the school and sold them there,” he recalled.

Having never met his father, Anderson said he was forced to develop survival skills from an early age.

“Not knowing my father motivated me because I realised from a very young age that I have to provide everything that I needed, so it drove me to do stuff for myself. I used to see that many children had working parents, but it was just my mother, and so it was more of a survival mode rather than an initial drive to succeed because I wasn’t the brightest student,” he said, adding that he had to repeat fourth form.

He recalled then that there was no electricity in his home, but that did not stop him from studying by the light of a lamp.

Years later when he was due to sit the GCE he was again financially challenged, forcing him to look for an additional income to pay for the subjects.

The owner of a poultry farm where his mother was working donated half of the cost for the exam and offered him the opportunity to work for the remainder.

This fostered his love for animal science.

But his streak of ill luck was far from over as his failure to correctly complete his receipt for the exams resulted in three of the four subjects he took being marked as ungraded.

“In completing the form I thought I remembered what the number was on the receipt I was given, and it wasn’t until the last exam that the lady (invigilator) noticed that I had put in a wrong number and she corrected it,” Anderson explained.

Months later when the results came back, only the Accounts exam was graded as the other three subjects — Agriculture, Mathematics, and English were ungraded.

“I went up and down trying to get it sorted out but no one would correct it, and, to be honest, at that time I felt like a failure with only one subject,” he recalled.

After leaving school, a friend told him about Ebony Park Heart Academy, and having studied agriculture in high school Anderson thought it wouldn’t hurt to apply there, since it was something to do.

He recalled, however, that his interest in the institution immediately piqued when he was called in for the interview and saw the beautiful residential facility that he would be living in during the course of his studies.

“That day of the interview they fed us rice and peas and chicken and that really caught my attention,” he said, explaining that participants were also given a stipend and this was highly anticipated by him, since, at the time, he was living with an uncle in another part of the parish.

In 1988, he started the 15-month-long agriculture programme specialising in dairy science.

“It was really enlightening for me. Although I had been exposed to agriculture before I didn’t have a grasp until I started learning the science behind it,” he explained.

Added to that was the fact that Anderson now had his own room and three solid meals each day.

“While at home I had to share bed; here, I had my own room and food and so at holiday times when the other students were going home I stayed,” he said. He recalled the year of Hurricane Gilbert when the students were sent home to await the reopening of the school.

“I would go to the post office every day because I was dying to go back there to get three meals a day,” he said.

When Anderson later graduated as the most outstanding student he was given a job as a demonstrator to assist the instructors in setting up class.

“When I started realising that I was doing better than all the students at Ebony Park, some of whom had five CXC subjects, I said to myself, it was not because I was dumb but it was because I didn’t have the resources. But there at Ebony Park I had proper shelter and food and I didn’t have anything to worry about,” he said.

At the end of each day Anderson would journey to Glenmuir to attend evening classes in a bid to receive those subjects that had eluded him in high school.

After being successful in English, Mathematics, and Biology, he took vacation leave from the academy to take up a job as a farm manager in St Mary.

Later, when new management at Ebony Park changed the policy to make it mandatory for demonstrators to be relieved of that position after one year, Anderson’s job was made redundant. Shortly after, he took up a job as a pretrained teacher of agriculture at Stony Hill Junior High School.

It was around that time that a neighbour informed him about a scholarship to study dairy farm management and milk processing in Holland, which he immediately applied for and was overjoyed weeks later when he got the call from the Dutch Embassy informing him that he was awarded the six-month scholarship.

“It was a really good experience, as I started seeing agriculture from a first-world standpoint,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

On completion of the post-graduate diploma in 1995, Anderson returned to Jamaica to work as an instructor in dairy science at Ebony Park.

Two years later, his stint with that institution came to an end on the grounds that he did not meet the academic qualification for the position since he did not possess an associate degree from the College of Agriculture, Science, and Education.

He then landed a job at Jamaica Broilers as a senior research assistant from 1997 to 1999 when his cousin Howard Taylor, who was studying in Texas, told him about Prairie View University.

Taking all his savings, Anderson went to Texas to further his studies — his tenure there supported by scholarships and part-time jobs on campus.

Anderson said he first met a mentor in the form of a Jamaican professor Dr Victor Stanley, who later became his advisor for the Master’s Programme.

“While working on my Master’s I went with Dr Stanley to a competition in the university — Pathway to doctoral programme — and was placed third in the competition. All the disciplines were judged together and I was the only one placed from agriculture,” he explained.

It was then that he was introduced to the dean of graduate school who put him in touch with some professors to pursue his doctoral studies.

By that time Anderson said he was no longer afraid to tell people his story, as he encountered others who rose from similar circumstances.

That, he said, led him to the conclusion that maybe his story can help. “After all, I say what happened then has no bearing on me now, so why would I be afraid. Even in high school I would be afraid to tell kids that… I used to live in a one-room house,” he said.

Anderson’s brother, Kenrick Ferguson, is now completing his doctorate in criminology in Texas, while his sister Charlene Brown, who lives in Hawaii, has completed a bachelor’s degree.

“My mother is now very proud of her children,” he said.

For now, Anderson said his educational path may not yet be over as he sometimes toys with the idea of pursuing another degree in forensics, as he likes the idea of working with DNA in crime labs.

Anderson said he uses every opportunity he gets to encourage young people to excel.

“I always tell them that I use education to break the cycle of poverty,” he said.