Drama educator, director and actress Belinda Barnes-Durity—known professionally as Belinda Barnes—said several significant events in her life led to her involvement in theatre.

She told an audience at the Monday Night Theatre Forum on May 16 at the Trinidad Theatre Workshop (TTW) that the first such event was failing Common Entrance. She was sent to a Catholic boarding school in Michigan at age 12 and after auditioning for a school play, a nun told her she could be good at theatre.

Upon graduation, her parents sent her to university in Canada, but she dropped out and found herself in New York. She looked up theatre schools—“because that's what I'd been told I was good at”—and was very surprised to be accepted to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, a celebrated conservatory in New York.

After graduation, she worked with different theatre companies, including the Negro Ensemble Co and Bedford-Stuyvesant Theatre in Brooklyn. She remembered being told to do plastic surgery and work on her accent in order to get ahead, but she never did. She returned to Trinidad eventually, where no one could understand, and she couldn't explain, why she had chosen to do drama.

Barnes joined the TTW, and went on tour with Derek Walcott. She created the character of the Bolom in Ti-Jean and his Brothers and “danced and sang and thought it was great, because I thought that was what [local] theatre was going to be but when we came back there was nothing happening.”

Barnes next moved to Jamaica, which had a long history of theatre in schools, and immediately got a job at Excelsior High School in Kingston. Barnes also worked with a group in the US Virgin Islands where she performed in Genet’s The Maids. 

Despite these early accomplishments, with her upbringing it was hard for her to call herself an actress.

Barnes said she felt she didn't know enough, and studied in the UK with Dorothy Heathcote, who pioneered the field of drama in education.

“Heathcote really understood how to use elements of theatre and drama to get people to learn. She said, ‘The only thing you have to do in this course is work two months in a mental hospital with me. If you can teach mental people anything, you could be a teacher.’” 

Barnes said Heathcote was an amazing mentor and the experience was enriching and the craziest one of her life.

Barnes moved back to T&T and worked with Rawle Gibbons at the Tapia House on various plays, including Dennis Scott’s An Echo in the Bone. She did her PhD in drama in education between 1995 and 1998 in Nebraska, but when she came home to write her thesis, she didn't feel motivated. “I don't think I'm an academic, I'm a teacher.” 

With fellow actresses Eunice Alleyne and Anne-Louise Tam, she wrote and acted in Three Women, directed by Mervyn de Goeas in 2008. The play was a critical success and won four Cacique Awards, including one for outstanding achievement in writing for an original script and most outstanding dramatic production. The last play she acted in was David Lindsay-Abaire’s Rabbit Hole, in 2011, again directed by Mervyn de Goeas.

Barnes turned her attention to teaching in high schools, taking jobs at Providence Girls’ Catholic School, Trinity College and Bishop Anstey High School (East). “It's very difficult to teach drama in Trinidad, because when I started nobody had any respect for you in any schools. 
“A lot of parochial schools had a tradition of performance. Drama came into government schools much later, just recently, so the journey was very difficult.” 

She credited the Secondary Schools Drama Festival with giving schools an outlet to raise the standards of theatre, which encouraged some respect for the discipline and those working in it.

Barnes lectured in theatre at the Department of Creative and Festival Arts at UWI, St Augustine, from 2004- 2010. She was also the main stage director for The Tempest. 

In 2010, she collaborated with actor Michael Cherrie to begin the acting program at UTT, where she is an assistant professor teaching acting, directing, theatre history and educative theatre. She also directed The Ass and the Philosophers (2010); My Most Memorable Christmas (2010); Three Sisters, After Chekhov (2012); Freedom Road (2014); Rose Slip (2014); Amen Corner (2015); and Two Choices (2016).

Barnes said what she enjoys most about teaching is seeing young actors experience a sense of achievement in their work. 

“Their passion can't grow if they don't have that experience. I've really enjoyed working with young people on the stage and seeing them really take off.”

Barnes said there are many plays from the 50s that need to be brought back because they are precious and part of T&T's heritage. 

“They really give young people today a taste of Trinidad they know nothing about and could really appreciate.” 

She said new work could be created from these plays and from events in T&T's history. Barnes also said the acting community needs to find new ways to get people to support theatre and advocated for the use of non-traditional spaces, as the bigger venues are too costly for most companies. 

“Our young people don't know about doing anything and everything because you love theatre, and not thinking that because you're in a production you're an actress. A lot of students graduate and want to go abroad. We continue to educate people to send them away. 

“We really need to create something to keep our people here.”

The Monday Night Theatre Forum continues monthly at the TTW, corner of Jerningham Avenue and Norfolk Street, Belmont.

In this the 18th instalment of the continuing series, Food for Thought/Grow & Eat Local, we focus on the mamey sapote/mamey apple fruit. Mammea Americana is commonly known by several names including: mammee, mamey apple, Santo Domingo apricot, tropical apricot, or South American apricot. In T&T, it is commonly referred to as mamey apple but also as mamey sapote. It is a tropical evergreen tree of the family Guttiferae which would make it a relative of the mangosteen.

Food for Thought/Grow and Eat Local seeks to inform about the 149 crops that are grown in T&T (not counting the varieties within many of them) which are depicted on two charts with a photo of each crop in alpha order giving the local and scientific names and were sponsored by First Citizens.

The model has been duplicated in Barbados, St Lucia and St Vincent and efforts are underway to do so in Jamaica and Guyana. Copies have been distributed to all schools and libraries. Information regarding their availability: email fruitstt@live.com 

In some Latin American countries Mammea Americana is referred to as yellow mamey (Spanish: mamey amarillo) in order to distinguish it from the unrelated but similar looking Pouteria sapota, whose fruit is usually called red mamey (Spanish: mamey colorado or mamey rojo). 

Mamey apple is native to the West Indies and northern South America. It was recorded as growing near Darién, Panama in 1514, and in 1529 was included by Oviedo in his Review of the Fruits of the New World.  It was then subsequently introduced into various regions in the Old World: West Africa, particularly Sierra Leone, Zanzibar, Southeast Asia and Hawaii.

The mamey apple tree is confined to tropical or subtropical climates and in Central America, the species can be found growing up to an altitude of 1,000 m. It thrives best in rich, deep and well-drained soil, but is very adaptive; it also grows on limestone in Jamaica and the Bahamas, and on ancient coral bedrock in Barbados as well as coral cays off the coast of Florida.

The mamey apple tree can grow to 18 m (69 ft) high, its upright branches forming a distinctive oval head with dark-green foliage. Flowers of the mamey apple are fragrant with four or six white petals and are borne either singly or in clusters of two or three, on short stalks. All parts of the plant exude yellow latex when cut. Mamey apple trees are often used as wind breaks.

The mamey apple is a berry, though it is often misinterpreted to be a drupe. Fruits are large and round, four-ten inches (10-25 cm) in diameter, with a grey-brown thick rind covering yellow orange pulp. When ripe, the pulp is firm and slightly juicy, with a pleasant taste reminiscent of apricot or peach.

he pulp is not fibrous and can have various textures (crispy or juicy, firm or tender). Generally the smell of ripe mamey apple fruits is pleasant and appetising. When unripe, the fruit is hard and heavy, but its flesh slightly softens when fully ripe. Beneath the skin, there is a white, dry membrane, whose taste is astringent.

Small fruits contain a single seed, while larger ones might have up to four. The seeds are brown, rough, oval and around six cm (2.4 in) long. The juice of the seed leaves an indelible stain.

Mamey apple is usually propagated by seed, but can also be grafted. Grafted trees bear fruit sooner, stay smaller, are hermaphrodite, and have predictable fruit quality. The seeds germinate slowly, taking from 40-260 days. Fresh seeds have a germination percentage of close to 100 per cent. Trees can be transplanted to the field after one-two years, when they are a foot (30 cm) or more in height.  

Seedling trees begin to bear fruits in six-eight years, grafted trees in three-five years from planting. Fruits ripen from July through September and fall to the ground when they are ripe. They can also be picked when they reach full size and show an external colour change from greenish brown to orange brown. A mature tree can produce over 250 fruits per year.

Though edible, this fruit has received little attention worldwide. The raw flesh can be served in fruit salads, or with wine, sugar or cream, especially in Jamaica. In the Bahamas, the flesh is first put in salted water to remove its bitterness, before cooking it with much sugar to make a jam. The flesh can also be consumed stewed. The pulp contains pectin thus making it useful in the preparation of jam. See http://www.simplytrinicooking.com/what-have-i-been-up-to-enjoying-ah-mam....

Various parts of the tree contain insecticidal substances, especially the seed kernel. In T&T, the grated seeds are mixed with coconut oil to treat head lice and chiggers. In a similar way, the bark gum is melted with fat in Jamaica and Mexico and then applied to feet to repel chiggers or fleas on animals. The same effect is also obtained from infusions of half-ripe fruits. In Puerto Rico, mamey apple leaves are wrapped around young tomato plants to keep mole crickets and cutworms away. 

In the Virgin Islands, the tannin from the bark is used to tan leather. The timber is heavy and hard, yet easy to work; it has received, however, only limited commercial interest.

Perhaps one reason for the underutilisation of the mamey apple fruit is its potential toxicity. When eating the pulp care should be taken not to eat that part of the pulp close to the seed since it is very bitter. Rural folk in the Dominican Republic have some doubt of the wholesomeness of mamey flesh while the Bahamian practice of soaking the pulp in salted water may be a safety precaution in as much as bitterness is not only disliked but distrusted. The old Jamaican custom of steeping the fruit pulp in wine might also be considered a safeguard.

It has been reported that, while the delicious mamey apple     has formed part of the diet of the inhabitants of the Caribbean Islands for many generations, it is well known that this fruit produces discomfort, especially in the digestive system, in some persons. It is also reported that a concentrated extract of the fresh fruit can prove fatally toxic to guinea pigs, and was also found poisonous to dogs and cats. The extract was made from the edible portion only.

http://www.simplytrinicooking.com/what-have-i-been-up-to-enjoying-ah-mam...

Here in T&T we tend to gravitate towards fruits and foods that are not local. Estimates are that our food import bill is near TT$5 billion annually and growing. Did you know that in the 1960s the Macqueripe/Tucker Valley was lush with citrus and banana fields producing more than enough to supply the nation?

In other fertile areas other crops were prolific. Oil centricity, industrialisation and non-agricultural business have essentially put paid significantly to the agricultural sector. It is critical that we as a nation engage and support the resurrection and revival of local food production (eg in schools), processing and consumption; as a country, we must place greater emphasis on food sovereignty as a matter of urgent attention.

For example, better roads are needed as highlighted in the Guardian recently http://www.guardian.co.tt/news/2016-06-14/couva-farmers-want-road-fixed. 

Visit the Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries’ website at http://www.agriculture.gov.tt/
This series is written in collaboration with Cynthra Persad, retired director of Research, Ministry of Agriculture.

He came to Fyzabad in 1921 along with hundreds of his countrymen from Grenada to work in the expanding oilfields, and the name of Tubal Uriah ‘Buzz’ Butler will always be associated with that town. 

In brief, growing discontent with the pay and working conditions at Apex Oilfields and the lack of a unionised workforce saw Butler being thrust to the head of an assembly which, on June 2, 1937, delivered terms to Col Horace Hickling, manager, which were summarily rejected. Butler was charged with sedition and went into hiding. 

The standoff between labour, the oilfields, and then the police became very tense indeed since Butler could not be apprehended due to the many people who risked their own freedom to keep him out of the hands of the colonial authorities. On June 19, the now-wanted Butler addressed a meeting at the Emporium Hall which was interrupted by several policemen under the charge of Inspectors Power and Liddlelow. 

One of the officers, Constable Belfon, was delegated to read the arrest warrant which led Butler to ask the crowd “Are you going to let them take me?” The response was an attack of bottles and stones aimed at the police who retreated. Power was struck on the head and later died.

Corporal Carl “Charlie” King, who had attempted to lay hands on Butler, was separated from his comrades. He ran to a nearby shop and leaped out the back window, breaking his legs. Kerosene was poured on him by the mob and he was set ablaze. The place where this happened is still known as Charlie King Junction. 

In the days that followed, Fyzabad became a warzone. The rioters barricaded the main roads into the downtown section and it was a full three days before the charred remains of Corporal King were recovered. An English policeman, W S Bradburn was shot dead while on patrol and in retaliation, the police killed an innocent bystander, La Brea Charles.

These tumultuous events made Fyzabad the spiritual birthplace of the modern Trinidadian labour movement and the Labour Day celebrations held here annually include a march which culminates at Butler’s gravesite (he died in 1977) in the ironically named Apex Cemetery. 

A brick Roman Catholic chapel dedicated to St Thomas More was constructed in 1940 and a year later, a new school was founded in an old bungalow donated by Apex Oilfields. This institution was established by a well-known educator and poet of Tobagonian origin named Harold Telemaque.

Called the Fyzabad Intermediate Anglican School, this place has risen to become one of the best-regarded secondary schools in the south of the island. 

A government primary school was constructed at Pepper Village to the north of Fyzabad at a later date. During the 1950s, Fyzabad remained a flourishing town. A new police station was built nearer the settlement since the old Constabulary (still to be seen) occupied an Apex structure and the interests of the oil barons in those days took precedence over the needs of the general populace.  

In 1960 Apex became part of British Petroleum. The oil boom years of the 1970s saw a spike in the economy of the district with the opening of a large Hi-Lo supermarket, a strip mall, and even a new secondary school. A branch of Barclays (now Republic) Bank was opened there as well. 

The good times were not to last forever, for with the plummeting of global oil prices, the 1980s brought recession. The old Apex holdings were once again to change hands as they became part of the new national oil company, Trintopec.

The straitened times showed itself in the gradual deterioration of the once-posh housing camps, with their swimming pools and tennis courts as well as the closure of Hi-Lo and one of the two cinemas in the town (although the Universal Cinema managed to soldier on until 2004). 

A new complex inaugurated by the government for the facilitation of cottage industries did little to stimulate self-employment. For many years, Fyzabad remained in a slump, even after a new state oil company, Petrotrin, was incorporated in 1993. It is only within very recent years that there has been some growth of the town and new modern buildings in place of the old ones.

A large private park and recreation facility on the old Trinidad Leaseholds Ltd lands is a major attraction. Nevertheless, there is still enough of the old Fyzabad to remind visitors of what was in the roaring heyday of this oil boom town. 

Valdeen Shears-Neptune

She was jealous of the prolific English author Charles Dickens for penning Great Expectations and would easily declare that after reading A House for Mr Biswas as a student of literature, she was convinced that a path was made for local authors like herself.

For Aliyyah Eniath, the seed was planted for what would years later be her debut novel, a literary romance titled, The Yard.

“I was greatly inspired when after reading A House for Mr Biswas at school, I realised a narrative set in a seemingly-inconsequential island in the Caribbean could have worldwide appeal and also for the first time, I could make it as a novelist,” said Eniath during a recent interview with the Guardian.

The former Holy Faith (Couva) student said the genesis for her novel, which launched on June 17, in New Delhi, India, was a casual conversation on adoption. The novel was published by Speaking Tiger Books and launched in conjunction with the T&T High Commission in India.

“I was having a conversation with a fellow Muslim in Trinidad and casually said I was thinking of adopting a child. She responded by saying it was against our faith. I was taken aback. How could something so selfless be against one’s faith?” she mused.

Eniath said she looked into the sensitive topic further and saw the complications of adopting a child in Islam.

Among those were the issues of being prohibited to change the child’s name and to claim the child as your own. Additionally, if one adopted a boy and the household had girls then they would be required to wear full garb and hijab at all times in his presence. The females could also wed an adoptive brother.

The idea stuck in her head and while admittedly it discouraged her somewhat from adopting, out of this was borne the idea of the protagonists, Behrooz, an abandoned young boy, adopted by businessman Khalid and his wayward and rebellious daughter, Maya.

It took her five years to finally write “the end” on the last page of Behrooz and Maya’s story, but she said it was a long process of rewriting and redrafting.

“It took this long because I was learning to find and perfect my voice and refine my writing techniques for that particular craft as I went along,” she said.

The Yard tells of the growth of a childhood bond and later a struggle with romantic attraction. What follows is a haunting story of love, family obligations and redemption.

“In the end, the novel calls for a journey of the heart, doing what you feel in your heart is the right thing to do, rather than focusing on stringent religious rules and cultural predispositions, which in this case caused problems with the family and for my protagonists,” she said.

While she said life did not imitate art for her novel and none of the characters resemble or represent anyone in her novel, she noted the novel’s title and its settings mirror that of a location in Curepe, Trinidad, where her father grew up as a child. Eniath said she was fascinated when as a child her father would take her on holiday trips to the “The Yard” in Curepe.

Just like in another of Eniath’s favourite novel, Wuthering Heights, she noted that the environment was as integral as the protagonists themselves.

As for the novel’s launch in India, Eniath said she had looked into finding a publisher in the Caribbean for fiction with worldwide distribution, networks and links for agents and publishers, specific to what she wanted to produce and there was none. She then looked abroad for a publisher both in the UK and India where she felt there would be an interest in the book, as those two territories just seemed to fit.

This journey would see her seek out the partnership of Renuka Chatterjee in India, who is reputed for being the top literary agent there.

“Luckily she fell in love with the book and when she became the consulting editor for Speaking Tiger Books (India) an offer came from the publishing house to publish and introduce me as a novelist in the India subcontinent,” she explained.

Eniath was expected to host her first reading yesterday at The Normandie, Tea and Reading, Paper Based Workshop. The event will also see the readings of other Caribbean writers.

MORE INFO
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Aliyyah Eniath has over ten years experience in printing and publishing and has been exposed to the industry all her life, as she grew up around books and printing in her family’s business, Eniath’s Printing Company Ltd. Her glossy magazines Caribbean Belle and Belle Weddings have won awards from the Caribbean Advertising Federation and the Florida Printers’ Association for print design and printing.

There is a noticeable increase in reports of child abuse during school breaks and parents should be even more vigilant during the July/August vacation. 

This advice comes from Senior Superintendent Odette Lewis, head of the Child Protection Unit in the T&T Police Service. She also advised parents to do serious research and background checks on the camps they may want their children to attend. 

Lewis, in an interview with the Guardian last month, noted that while reports of child abuse were spread across T&T, the lack of supervision during school breaks, created an increase in the risk of abuse to children. 

She advised that parents be cautious with all potential caretakers of their children, whether they be family members, paid babysitters, or camps. 

“The holidays are upon us and people take parents to go by aunty and uncles for holidays. Some people even leave their children home unsupervised, but either option can lead to a dangerous situation,” Lewis said. 

“Whether it’s a babysitter, a nursery or a camp, parents have the responsibility to do background checks to ensure their children’s safety. If you are not sure, you can come to us, we will check for you and give you advice because there are a lot of people who establish camps and facilities to take care of children, who are questionable.” 

While Lewis did not have the statistics at hand, she said the unit had identified that when school was on vacation, reports of violence and sexual abuse of children were higher. 

“Parents may send their child to a relative if they aren’t able to afford a babysitter, thinking this is a safer option, but it is sometimes a case where that relative has friends around who interfere with the child.” She advised parents to discuss appropriate touches with their children and to look for the warning signs of abuse. 

“Pay attention to your child’s behaviour. Children tend to become withdrawn after traumatic experiences and may get quiet or drastically change behaviour.” 

Lewis also advised parents to get their children involved with the Police Youth Club as she said it teaches positive values. 

Signs of abuse 
Several resources provide signs and symptoms of abuse. These signs and symptoms were compiled using information from the World Health Organization and the Mayo Clinic. 
Physical abuse signs and symptoms
• Unexplained injuries, such as bruises, fractures or burns. 
• Injuries that don’t match the given explanation.
• Untreated medical or dental problems. 
• Sexual abuse signs and symptoms
• Sexual behaviour or knowledge that’s inappropriate for the child’s age. 
• Blood in the child’s underwear. 
• Statements that he or she was sexually abused
• Trouble walking or sitting or complaints of genital pain. 
• Abuse of other children sexually. 

Emotional abuse signs and symptoms 
• Delayed or inappropriate emotional development. 
• Loss of self-confidence or self-esteem. 
• Depression. 
• Headaches or stomach aches with no medical cause. 
• Avoidance of certain situations, such as refusing to go to school or ride the bus. 
• Desperately seeks affection. 
• A decrease in school performance or loss of interest in school. 
• Loss of previously acquired developmental skills 

Neglect signs and symptoms 
• Poor growth or weight gain. 
• Poor hygiene. 
• Lack of clothing or supplies to meet physical needs. 
• Taking food or money without permission. 
• Eating a lot in one sitting or hiding food for later. 
• Poor record of school attendance. 
• Lack of appropriate attention for medical, dental or psychological problems or lack of necessary follow-up care.
• Emotional swings that are inappropriate or out of context to the situation.

Finding an appropriate care programme for a child during the July/August vacation may be a task for some parents. Parents may want a safe environment, with a space where children can still develop mentally and socially while having fun so they want to attend repeatedly. 

T&T has a lot of camps running throughout the next two months, some between one week and others a month long, with programmes in cooking, sports, art, educational activities and more. 

While parents consider factors such as cost and safety, they can also consider exposing their children to new activities. The Guardian has compiled a list of four camps for interested parents. 

Niherst Science and Technology camp 
The Niherst camp offers children the opportunity to explore science in a fun way, while expressing their creativity in a stimulating and safe environment. The camp offers a variety of science, technology and innovation themed camps ranging from one to two weeks. Camps explore a range of both fundamental and cutting-edge topics including gravity, marine biodiversity, hydroponics and aquaponics, neuroscience, engineering, robotics, computer science, programming and app development. 

Camps are from 9 am to 3 pm,  Monday to Friday, except public holidays, for $275/week. Registration is still open and remains open until all the camps are filled. The camp accepts children as young as five years old.  Parents can call 642-6112 for more information. 

Camp CSI 
Bishop Anstey Trinity College East Career Builders series is giving children a look at Crime Scene Investigation with its Camp CSI. Children will be exposed to processing crime scenes and recovering evidence. It’s a forensic science camp and aims at introducing children to a potential career field. 

The camp takes place from July 18 to July 22, from 8 am to 4 pm daily, and costs $850. The camp accepts children as young as ten. Parents can call 346-3857.

Adventure Seekers 
The camp’s goal is to get children away from television and games and get them outdoors and familiar with their country. The camp includes horseback riding, visits to the Valencia Nature Centre and Lopinot Historical Complex, as well as hikes to Mermaid Pool and Toco Lighthouse. Children are given journals to document all their adventures. 

The camp takes place from July 11 to July 15, from 8 pm to 4 pm, with an early drop-off and late pick-up option for parents. The camp costs $650. The camp accepts children aged five to 12. Parents can call 323-8434. 

Tots and Tumblers Summer Fun Camp 
This camp is all action and focuses on teaching children aged six and up all aspects of gymnastics. The Tots and Tumblers gymnastics club recently won the top club award and will teach participants conditioning, trampoline as well as fun games. 

The camp takes place on July 8, from 8.30 am to 1 pm, on Dundonald Street, Port-of-Spain, and costs $600 per week. Registration is still open.

For more information, parents can call 629-3001.

• See Guardian Kids B8 for more camps.

The steelband movement is replete with locals who sacrifice a lot of time and energy to nurture the proliferation of the national instrument at home and abroad. Selwyn “Fruits” John is one such panman and he proudly stands alongside T&T steelband ambassadors like Ellie Mannette, Robert Greenidge, Clifford Alexis, Rudy “Two Leff” Smith, Othello Molineaux and Liam Teague, musicians who continue to expose and promote pan on the world stage.

Earlier this year, John, a key member of First Citizens Supernovas Steel Orchestra, was involved in a significant event which placed pan from Israel, of all places, centre stage at a prestigious American university. John’s participation actually began more than two decades ago through his affiliation with a university lecturer who works in Israel.

John related: “Knowing that I was from Trinidad and involved in pan, Professor Harvey Price befriended me about 25 years ago at the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia. When we met, he, and another American guy named George Whitmire, were experimenting on steel drums made from stainless steel material. Two of those drums are in Trinidad right now—Bertram ‘Butch’ Kellman has had one for about 20 years and I brought the other one this year which I intend placing at the grave of the late Jit Samaroo. 

“Through my relationship with the professor, I was instrumental in acquiring pan instruments to be sent to Israel, where the professor was forming a steelband comprising some of his students. Three years ago the professor succeeded in forming a multi-denominational steelband of Muslims from Palestine, and Jews and Christians in the Galilee region of Israel. The idea behind this initiative was to get different peoples to communicate with each other.

“In October 2013, the professor, with Delaware’s Christian and Muslim associates in the village of Ibillin and the Jewish youth of Haifa, finally got the steelband up and running.  

“This year, the Israeli steelband— The Peace Drums—went to the United States and played at various locations including New York, Philadelphia and Delaware. The main performance was at the University of Delaware and I was invited to give a lecture on steelband development and history. I got a tremendous reception from the Americans. Also speaking with me was Aneysha de Coteau, who spoke on the musical aspects of pan. It was moving seeing all these young, bright students giving a rousing ovation to this Trini panman.”

John believes that, despite the exposure given to the national instrument in the past, there is a lot of work still to be done globally. He said: “Pan Trinbago and the government of T&T have to get a lot more proactive and serious as pan instruments and music are in great demand abroad. The demand continues to outdistance the supply.

“The Americans are also desperate for people who can teach the pan and its music at college and university levels. Too many Trini pan people go out there just to play, ‘to eat ah food’, drink and have a good time, and there is serious work to be done to promote our national instrument, a lot more outside there. Pan is a lot deeper than just playing the instrument.”

The Peace Drums event was hosted by the University of Delaware and it was actually a month-long exercise with the Israel steelband at the University. John’s lecture was based on his overseas travels with pan and his involvement with various universities in the US. 

John also revealed that his steelband, FC Supernovas, would be hosting a steelband gospel event at a local venue on October 1. He added: “The concert will be produced with a collaboration done with all churches, with various steelbands playing gospel music on the road between Eddie Hart Ground and Constantine Park in Tunapuna.

The intention is to see if we can reach souls in young people, for some sort of peace, of which the older generation would benefit at present. Right now we are in organisational phase seeking sponsorship from the various ministries to be involved with this event.

“The greatest achievement we hope to accomplish is for folks to see love, peace and harmony as the recipe for saving T&T, instead of crime. Gospel on the road in October will have some of the leading steelbands in our country. It will be beneficial in two ways because of the level of musicianship required of both instruments and tutors not only in places like Israel and abroad.”

Tonya Welch is as beautiful as she is graceful. When you look at her, the first thing that comes to mind is a beauty queen or a model. But she is far from those things. In fact, when you address the avid ballet dancer and teacher of the discipline, please call her Dr Welch, because that’s just what she is. 

She specialises in sports medicine, an area not commonly practiced by female health professionals. She said she needed to prove to herself that she could make it in a man’s world and be just as good at a chosen field or even better.  

She first tried one year in engineering at Queen’s University in Canada. But one day it was as though Welch had a sudden epiphany—she looked around her classroom and recognised her class was mostly made up of men. The former St Joseph Girls Convent student made a decision in one week to switch majors. She flew to Dublin in Ireland where she would pursue medicine at the Royal College of Surgeons. 

“I called my parents back home and I told them this is not for me. There are too many men here and I’m a woman, this is for strong people. My parents supported my move even though we both felt it was a risky one in the sense it was not at all a well-planned-out decision,” Welch explained. 

The young doctor was sharing her story with those present at the Port-of-Spain Rotary Club, Fitzblackman Drive, Woodbrook, where she was the guest of honour at a special meeting on June 7. Her decision might have been an inattentive one, but in retrospect she believes it was a divine intervention, seeing where she is today. She can only speak of fond memories and experiences while at the college. 

But as fate would have it, though Welch started out studying general medicine—spending enough time on the football field and observing some of the stresses athletes go through with injuries—drew her to the practice of sports medicine. 

After completing her Masters, though staying abroad might have worked out better for her, Welch decided to return home. She is on call as a medical doctor at the department of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the St James Medical Complex, as well as the physician for TT Pro League teams Central FC, San Juan Jabloteh and the T&T National Senior Women’s Team. 

Healing one injury at a time is not her only mission. She is also on a drive to encourage other young female professionals to excel in careers that are traditionally male dominated. 

She wants to also turn the spotlight on positive young people who want to be successful right here in T&T, rather than add to the already prodigious brain drain existing. She is hoping to be of influence through her upcoming television programme Unwind, which is soon to be aired on Gayelle TV.

Welch said the idea for the programme came from talking to many young professionals about their career choices, many of whom believed it is difficult to be successful in T&T—most spoke of migrating to find solid ground, respect and commensurable salaries. 

“Young professionals like myself often feel jaded by the regressed minds that plague our land. As we speak there are limited avenues for intelligent conversation for young people,” Welch said. 

It is really worrying the number of young people that don’t want to stay here. They really believe they cannot make it here and I want to change that.” 

She believes too much focus is placed through the local media on the negative things young people do. She said her programme will also address this.

“Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that these things must not be dealt with. But surely they aren’t the only things that are happening here in T&T. Too often I put on the television on a local channel, and there always seems to be a hard focus on what is going wrong,” Welch said. 

“We love to talk about the bad stuff. Every day you turn on the TV and it about who mother do this. Who grandmother kill ‘she self.’ It’s all so negative. And what is at the forefront of T&T right now shouldn’t be there, because there are people amongst us who should be at the forefront of our news. And that’s what we need. I think that is what the programme Unwind will do.”

I’d been here before, looking at my mother on her bed, unable to move. But this was different. There was a slackness to the left side of her face and she couldn’t support her body as she fought to sit up. 

Her voice was slurred, but the words were definite and determined. She wanted to get up, to get out of bed, to get going. It’s what she had done all her life and certainly all of my life, a never-ending resistance against inertia while railing against a casual acceptance of her lot in life. 

We had been here before, three years before, but then she was paralysed with serious illness, a respiratory infection. 

This time I was witness to a battle, a fight to seize control of her body against a force so strong and invisible that all I could see were the outer tremors of it, the smallest indicators of her struggle in the sharp sudden spasms of her arms, the sudden twists of her hips as she tried repeatedly to sit up, to get moving. 

I searched the web on my phone, called my doctor, spoke with the emergency dispatcher on 811 and my initial fear was confirmed with steady and unnerving assurance. This was a stroke in progress. My mother’s last spoken sentence was a repetition of the nonsense tongue-twister that the ambulance dispatcher asked me to have her say. 

She responded to the paramedics in short phrases and monosyllables. But after we lifted her off the bed and onto the little folding wheelchair to take her out of the house and onto the waiting stretcher, she stopped responding entirely. 

There was still stoic hope then, but as the hours went by in the casualty ward and every face met mine with grim seriousness, I thought again about how my mother’s head had rolled off to one side as we rolled her to her front door in that awkward folding wheelchair. An unconscious head simply doesn’t drop like that, bereft of even reflexive muscle restraint and control. 

My mother died, according to the official hospital account, of a brainstem cardiovascular accident. I believe everything she was died right then, her brain mortally starved of blood-borne oxygen, as her body rolled through her antique wooden front door and white curtains whipped by the wind billowed around us. 

She never spoke or responded to stimulus again after leaving her bed at home. She was in a high risk room where Casualty and Emergency Ward patients are closely monitored. 

I had access, but backed out of the creaking doors when I saw the vigorous huddles around the gurney. After five hours, things became quiet and the check-ins by her medical team became more circumspect. 

Finally, the hospital’s Medical Registrar on duty was introduced to me with his associates. His words came in waves. 

“Brainstem stroke.” 

“Quality of life.”

“Let her go.” 

He was being unusually compassionate, even for a trained and experienced doctor and then he paused and asked, “Are you hearing me?” 

I’d been following him, but I’d also been lost in the sudden, sharp realisation that all of our differences over the last five years would never be resolved and all the experiences I’d withheld in the face of that conflict would never be shared. I knew we would end up here. 

My schooling in being stubborn and opinionated came from a master, and when we were in conflict, it belonged on the boss level of a PlayStation battle. As mother and dutiful son, we were unbeatable. As adults with independent lives, it was an OK Corral showdown. 

I’d backed off five years ago, announcing a decision to return to the role she was more comfortable with. But it chafed and she knew it. 

Her determined grip on the echoes of my first marriage, while refusing to answer the doorbell of my second underpinned the last 16 years of our lives, and as I responded to the now frowning doctor with a rasping “yes,” I felt the weight of how terribly sad and irreversible it all had been. 

My last words to her were whispered thanks and a kiss on her still very warm cheek, her robust and muscular body still fighting, even as a killing blade of deoxygenation worked its way deeper into her amazing brain. It was 7 pm on June 23, six hours since I’d found her at home. 

That night, I fell out of bed. I never fall out of bed. I can sleep on a plank, turn on it and not fall—even in a deep sleep. 

For one moment, I was aware but not awake, feeling the surprising weightlessness of the fall and then I hit the floor with a fleshy slap. 

Clawing back up to bed, muttering curses between gasps of surprised agony, I wondered if a spirit trying to rise and being pulled back to earth had tried to tell me something. 

At midday on June 24, her body stopped its work and for the first time in a very long time, my mother was set free from her cares and worries, her concern and powerful, overriding sense of responsibility. 

Eighty-two years after coming into the world kicking and screaming at Lopinot Road in Arouca, she left it gracefully, quickly and I hope, painlessly, the last synapses in her brain flickering out like guttering candles in a brisk and cleansing wind.

Rosemarie Sant

GML ENTERPRISE DESK

She has been a PNM stalwart who supported Patrick Manning during his four decades in politics and when he died Christine Levia, better known as Twiggy, told the GML Enterprise Desk, “I cried and I am still crying,” as she wiped tears from her eyes.

Although she had been expecting it after Mr Manning fell ill, Twiggy said she always hoped for the best. “I knew he is a fighter, so I was shocked when I got the news.”

She said on Saturdays she would normally go to the market, “but Saturday morning my mind say stay home, the vibes I get, I stay and start to clean and wash. While I was washing I get a phone call, once my home phone ring I know is important. The person at the other end did not speak, I say ‘meh father dead,’ the person say ‘yes,’ I just drop the phone down.”

She recounted her deep admiration and respect for Mr Manning who, she said, was like a father to her, “more of a father to me than my own father. After my mother died it was Mr Manning who took care of me. There was nothing that me and my children wanted that he did not help us with,” she said.

Twiggy’s association with Manning started when he first entered politics. 

She said: “I was not of age to go upstairs in Parliament but I used to sit downstairs and wait for him. I always admired him. He had courage, faith and patience.”

She said Manning always took the time to listen to people. “He never shun me or pass me, he would listen to my problems and complaints. That is the most respectable man in the PNM.”

She said they talked about everything and when in 2010 he called an early election she was one of the first to question his decision. But she said he told her he had to do it because there were some in the party who were plotting to bring a no-confidence motion against him. She said he told her there were “people in the PNM who wanted to assassinate me, they want to kill me.” But she said he was determined to stand up to them. According to Twiggy, he told her he wanted to be able to “go home peacefully.”

It’s now history that the PNM lost the May 24, 2010, general election. Twiggy said from then it was a real fight down, “his own people was fighting him, it wasn’t UNC or NJAC or anybody else, it was the same PNM people whom he brought into the party who wanted him out. They fought Mr Manning right down to the end.”

Twiggy denied that she was ever part of any movement or protest to get Mr Manning to leave the PNM after the defeat. “I was always loyal to Mr Manning, in all his 44 years in politics I never gave him up, because he always took time to listen,” she said. Twiggy said, “Mr Manning was one of the greatest men in politics in this country but he had it up and down with them (those who were opposed to him).”

She said although he died with calm and peace last Saturday, he never recovered from “the hurt and humiliation at the way he was asked to leave the PNM.”

She said, “They fought Mr Manning right down to the end, they fight my father out of the party, the party which he build. Where were they when it was 33-3 and Mr Manning was rebuilding the party? All of them who want to talk now, I wasn’t seeing them when it was 33-3, they were not there.”

Manning suffered a stroke in January 2012 and never fully recovered, but she believed that he got sick long before that. She said the former prime minister “got sick from the day he left Balisier House after they run him, he was sick, he was hurt by his own people,” she said. Manning never returned to Balisier House. Twiggy said she herself feels great pain when she passes by the headquarters which once had a special place in her heart, “I could show you I never went to renew my party card,” she said.

Twiggy said she can’t return to Balisier House because when they booed Manning and caused him to leave “it come like they boo me too, I feel sick at what the party has become.”

Today she said many of the people who were part of the conspiracy to get him to leave “they regret what they do, now they only have good things to say about Mr Manning. Since he died no bad word come out of anybody mouth.” 

She laughed and cried during the interview as she recalled her relationship with Manning, “I called him daddy and he called me daughter.” 

She boasts that Mr Manning often invited her to events and that she had met the Queen of England and the US President Barack Obama, whom Manning personally introduced her to when they were in Trinidad. She had photos to prove that she met them.

“He used to unite people, bring people together, look at what he did with Caricom. We called him dimple because of the dimples which showed when he smiled,” she said.

Twiggy said she had cause at times prior to 2010 to complain to Manning about the way things were going. “He would listen, he would come and visit us, see what was happening, Manning was on the ground with the troops. He helped real people who I carry to see him, they get house and jobs.

“He would stand tall, they will forever be in his shadow, because they can’t touch him,” she said of those who she said are today fighting among themselves for power. “He was a gentleman, a statesman, a powerful man.” 

She boasted that she helped organise the troops for political meetings. “Mr Manning will call me and I would call my people and we would organise 30, 40 maxi taxis and people. He knew how important the ground troops were,” she said.

Admittedly he made mistakes, she said, no one is perfect, but she said he was someone who cared deeply about people. “That is a party that he built, that is the foundation.” Today, she said, the PNM “just have members, the PNM is far from the PNM we knew. I don’t regret saying it, before we could go to the party headquarters and feel like a family, is not like that no more.”

With the death of Manning she said the party now has some work to do. They lost Martin Joseph, Morris Marshall, all men whom people admired; today all there is in the PNM is “a rat race among those who want leadership.”

She has no intention of switching allegiance. “Look at me, I have a nice house, I have everything I want, a home. What else do I need? I don’t need any of them,” she said.

Review by Kevin Baldeosingh

Here’s how you can tell if a government is serious about reducing corruption: there will be (1) zero tolerance by political leadership, (2) scaling down of regulations and tax incentives while those retained will be transparent, (3) public service wages will be increased through trimming the fat in the civil service and (4) campaign finance reform.

The 18 studies in this book presents evidence by economists showing why these measures reduce corruption and, concomitantly, why resistance to such policies indicates corruption in a society. The chapters include topics such as whether public service wages affect corruption, the link between natural resources and corruption, how government expenditures on education and health can reveal corruption.

Interestingly, economists only became interested in the issue in the 1990s. Before that, corruption was treated by sociologists, historians, legal scholars and political scientists. Economics has a more rigorous approach to corruption than these other fields because economists analyse through resource allocations and prices and, most importantly, create empirically based models which can prove or disprove their hypotheses. At the same time, the models can only be specific to the society or group being studied, so extrapolating for universal policy prescriptions is problematic.

Take the finding that “an increase in civil service salaries in relation to those paid in the manufacturing sector has a favourable impact on the corruption index.” Can this apply to T&T, where manufacturing employees are generally low-paid? Moreover, the salary increases worked in a context made possible by trimming the fat from the Civil Service—a strategy which is highly unlikely to happen here.

Then there’s the finding that “corruption is negatively associated with government expenditure on education”—an increase in corruption reduces spending on education. This might seem to indicate that T&T has a low level of corruption, since education typically gets the highest portion of the national budget. On the other hand, that expenditure is lower as a portion of GDP compared to countries with low corruption levels. Similarly, the economists find that “a high level of corruption has adverse consequences for a country’s child and infant mortality rates, percent of low-weight babies in total births and dropout rates in primary schools.” And corruption in this country’s health sector is an ongoing issue.

Corruption, the writers note, “leads to allocations in favour of less productive investment projects and against non-wage operations and maintenance expenditures, such as books and medicines, which reduce the quality and productivity of existing infrastructure.” This sounds like standard policy in T&T, no matter which party is in power.

However, even though ordinary citizens always complain about corrupt politicians, they would probably complain more if any government instituted the measures needed to reduce corruption. As the contributors note: “Corruption often accompanies the provision by the government of goods and services at below-market prices. This often occurs with credit, foreign exchange, the prices of public utilities services, public housing, higher education, health services and so on...Thus, raising these prices to equilibrium level whenever possible would eliminate or reduce corruption.” But that list includes many of the policies that the late prime minister Patrick Manning has been lauded for. 

Thus, there aren’t many policy prescriptions that seem politically feasible for T&T in this book. However, many of the papers give useful insights as to corruption indicators, and many of those will be all too familiar to us.

This personal story by a business professional explores how personal disaster can also be a powerful transforming tool to change your life for the better.

Adanna Austin

I have always loved business even though I did not major in business at university. But I had a knack for understanding how businesses worked, including how to use effective marketing and public relations. To say it came easy to me would be stretching the truth, but it was something that I knew I loved and got excited about and thus it did not feel like work.

I led a typical life. I had married parents, one older sibling, went to university, then got my Masters, got married, bought a house and a car and earned a pretty decent income in a pretty great job. Yet I felt unfulfilled on a good day. Then in 2011, I decided to register my own business and without a logo, a website or a call card I set out to contact as many businesses as I knew and offered my services as a consultant. Lucky for me, I got four ongoing paying clients who were willing to take a chance with me as a first time entrepreneur. Then the divorce came.

I am not sure how much of a part my business venture played in the lead-up to the divorce but I can honestly say I was obsessed with my business because it was the only thing that made me feel alive. 

Needless to say, the divorce knocked me off course for two years. For two whole years I did not chase a client, I did not talk about my business much to anyone and I made no real effort to revive it. I was battling something deep inside me that kept my passion locked in a cage. It was my fear of failure. What if I am not good enough? What if my new relationship failed because of my passion? I was in and out of depression for most of these years without really confronting it.

By year three, I was back in a relationship which I thought was solid and I slowly started to get excited about my business again. I started to do short courses online and reach out to people again and sure enough, I got new clients and new opportunities. I started to see the light at the end of the tunnel and for a split second I felt like maybe, just maybe, things will work out for me this time around.

But like a thief in the night, disaster struck again.

A close relative passed away and just two weeks later my relationship also crumbled. To say that I was shaken is an understatement. I was sad, I was hurt and I was depressed. My body ached, I couldn’t stop crying, I didn’t understand my emotions and the panic attacks knocked me over. My life as I knew it was in a mess. And I was in the middle of rebuilding my business. I almost did what I had done three years earlier and run to the hills. But I got help this time. I sought the services of grief counselors and a specialist. I was fighting for my life and I knew that if I did not get through this patch, then it really was the end for me.

I hired a coach and in one of our sessions I mentioned to him about my body pains. He suggested I see my doctor—and BAM! There it was again. Another setback. I needed surgery. I was unwell. I was bleeding internally and I was in pain. The universe sure had it out for me. All the while, I am working my 8 to 4 job, trying to build my business at the side and battling what could only be described as chronic pain. Depression was again creeping into my psyche. It was trying to hold onto me and strangle me till I suffocated.

My depression had her own name. She was determined to make me overthink every decision and rack my body with pain. She was determined to keep me down and in a submissive position. My panic attacks became the norm. My pain became the norm and my feelings of sadness and despair everyday became the norm.

In my heart, I wanted to be a fullfledged entrepreneur. Run my own business. Take full control of my life. Quit my 8 to 4 job. Have my surgery to stop my pain (which did not stop the pain completely) and go full out and become what I wanted to be—a business coach and consultant. Saying the words felt scary, but it also brought with it a sense of relief. It was as though my body and my head and heart were finally aligning.

I needed to be a coach and an entrepreneur. I needed to live the life I wanted and to be happy. I needed to help other entrepreneurs overcome their own fears and push pass their what ifs. I need to be me.

I handed in my resignation letter and my panic attacks stopped, my pain has considerably reduced and I get up each day happy and healthier. Now I look at my depression as a blessing. It strangled the fear out of me. It pushed me to make a decision to become an entrepreneur and it has actually opened the doors for me to get more clients because I share my story and use my own experience to help them push through their own fears.

What about you? What made you quit your job? What was the big thing that finally made you take that leap of faith? I want to hear from you.

• Follow Adanna at her blog at https://mkgdynamics.wordpress.com

We start this week with the Citizen Security Programme (CSP). CSP is an Inter-American Development Bank funded initiative run under the auspices of the Ministry of National Security. The programme aims to significantly impact the instance of violent crime in known “hot spots” across T&T, by contracting the expertise of NGOs to deliver impactful programmes targeted to at-risk communities. Many NGOs such as Parenting TT and the Loveuntil Foundation have benefitted from CSP support. 

In 2011, Alta was invited to submit and successfully completed, a process of in-depth analysis of its programmes and processes to determine the feasibility of becoming part of the Citizen Security Programme’s second intake of NGO partners. In June of 2012, after a rigorous proposal writing and project vetting process, Alta was contracted to build capacity in CSP communities.

This meant first training volunteers from within nine communities via an extended apprenticeship process and then supporting the implementation of Alta classes and registration of students in these communities. 

This met with moderate success, as only five of the 23 CSP trainees went on to fulfil their volunteer contracts and only the Lendore, Hindu school class in Enterprise Chaguanas got off the ground and has been successfully maintained. They also underwent an interim phase of community mobilisation and student registration, specifically for CSP community residents, after the first phase of the project. 

In March 2015, armed with all of the lessons learned from Phase I, Alta embarked upon Phase II of its engagement with CSP. This took the form of continued support of the Lendore Hindu school class and active CSP-resident tutors and students but focused primarily on reducing the stigma that acts to prevent persons getting into literacy class. This was identified as the major barrier to start-up of the proposed classes in the CSP communities and CSP support has enabled Alta to produce two different Anti-Stigma Campaigns.

Being a part of the CSP fold also involves membership in the Civil Society Working Group which meets to discuss triumphs, challenges, network and brainstorm on projects. Working Group membership has also afforded Alta opportunities to increase capacity through training, notably in the areas of monitoring and evaluation and communications. CSP contracted NGOs were also furnished with multi-media equipment including a speaker-system and projector, a laptop, a printer/copier/fax machine a digital camera—all to assist in the projects developed under CSP.

Alta has benefited greatly from our partnership with CSP. We are extremely grateful for their support and will continue to ensure successful projects such as the Anti-Stigma campaign continue in the years to come.

• You can volunteer, donate or sponsor-a-student. Call Alta at 624-2582 for more information. 

The solemnity of Wednesday’s Eid holiday ought to evaporate as early as tonight with the staging of the second major 2017 Carnival band launch.

Following the Paparazzi Carnival launch of Sky Gazers at Pier 1, Chaguaramas, last Saturday, Harts Carnival will launch Ultraviolet Jungle at the Queen’s Park Oval car park on Elizabeth Street, St Clair, tonight.

For Carnival 2017, Harts Carnival intends taking a colourful tour through the fictitious Ultraviolet Jungle. The band’s PR folk stated in a release this week: “It’s a jungle out there in the Trinidad Carnival scene, and for over 50 years, one band has matched and exceeded the expectations of the masses with costumes in living colour and splendour. For 2017, Harts Carnival plans to continue its domination and illuminate the streets of Port-of-Spain with an imagination-stirring theme: Ultraviolet Jungle.”

 With an arguably revolving door of similar themes and mirrored presentations in recent years, bandleader Gerald Hart says he wants to ensure masqueraders and spectators love both the vibrant costume presentation as well as the road experience on Carnival Monday and Tuesday.

The Harts team of costume designers says it aims to bring unique, quality, ingenious design elements to its offerings. This year, the band’s theme is partially inspired by the blockbuster movie Avatar, the global movie hit with incredible cinematics that appealed to all ages. The band says:
“For Ultraviolet Jungle, Harts promises to elevate your idea of natural and normal: eclectic bursts of colour, creatively detailed patterns and a novel perception of life among a multitude of species in the wilderness.”

Orchis, Paro, Cheety and Winged Azure are just a few costumes that may send the masses into a wild frenzy, say band representatives. As usual, Gerald Hart leads the Harts design team which includes second-year designers Erin Gonzales, Kacie Gonzales and Solange Govia. Some brand new faces also make their designer debut with the Harts Family for 2017, including Natania Mack and Laura Narayansingh. 

Following close on the heels of the Harts Carnival launch is the unveiling of the 2017 presentations of Tribe and Bliss. Their joint launch is scheduled for Saturday, July 16 at The Paddock, Queen’s Park Savannah, Port-of-Spain.

The next weekend, on July 23, Band of the Year Ronnie & Caro will launch its mas: Fearless 10. Bandleader Ronnie McIntosh, commenting on his ambitious band launch, said this week: “You would never have seen anything like this. Just say it’s going to be a street affair in the St Clair/ Woodbrook area.”

Speaking about Fearless 10, Mc Intosh said the theme is a celebration of the band’s tenth anniversary. “It has been quite an adventure and journey,” said McIntosh. “The first year we produced a band, we were hesitant to continue, but after our success by winning the Band of the Year (Medium) title with The Gulf, we closed our eyes and went ahead fearlessly.

For ten years our track record has been impeccable and we boast of giving our masqueraders the best value-for-dollar deal when it comes to playing mas and enjoying yourself in a safe environment.”

Carnival 2017 will be held on February 27-28.

Pan here to stay 
Not even the sodden mud underfoot could dampen the spirits of pan lovers, who journeyed to the Recreation Ground in Marabella for last Saturday’s Pan in De Countryside. Staged by Pan Trinbago Inc—in collaboration with the Ministry of Community Development, Culture and the Arts—the 24th edition of the monthly event featured bpTT Renegades, Pan Elders, Golden Symphony, Southern Marines, Fusion Steel, and Marsicans.

Obviously in sheer ecstacy, one pan enthusiast was overheard saying that Renegades gave him the best pan performance he had heard in many years. The Charlotte Street steel orchestra, playing as if its repertoire had no end, thrilled the audience with medleys of popular calypsoes by Kitchener and Sparrow. Also stirring the crowd were Pan Elders and Southern Marines. 

In other steelband news, plans are well on the way for Pan on d’Avenue, scheduled for Saturday, August 27 along Ariapita Avenue, Woodbrook. This popular pan event is staged by the Woodbrook/St James Community Association. Corporate secretary Allima Garcia said: “This event is organised to foster unity amongst the residents of Woodbrook, as well as to celebrate the anniversary of our Independence. It is also a chance to honour and pay tribute to stalwarts in the indigenous arts of T&T, alive and posthumously, whether in pan, calypso or mas.” 

Since its inception, the association has paid tribute to Anthony Williams, Black Stalin, the late Ralph Mac Donald and Holly Thomas. It has also honoured the first King and Queen of Carnival, Colin Edghill and Kay Christopher, pan arrangers, tuners and manufacturers.

This year’s event is being held in memory of the late Antonio “Amigo” Nadur, who began the Carnival Monday steelband competition in Adam Smith Square many years ago. He died in December. Also, tribute will be paid to Asami Nagakiya, the Silver Stars pan player who was slain on Carnival Tuesday this year, who chose to play with Woodbrook steelbands. 

Expecting approximately 30 steelbands to parade in an easterly direction along the Avenue, the Association will honour “The Engine Room” of the steelband movement—percussionists like the late Corey of San Fernando and “Iron Charlie” Bradshaw of Desperadoes, “Killer” of Supernovas and “Soca” Brumante of Renegades. 

The Woodbrook/St James Community Association committee includes Cleveland and Allima Garcia, Carl “Beaver” Henderson, Saieed A Garcia and Margaret Indrani Ellis. 

Condolences 
Ending on a sad note, Pulse extends condolences to Hazel Manning and the family of Patrick Augustus Manning on his passing last Saturday. The late prime minister’s funeral will be held tomorrow morning at Trinity Cathedral. Condolences also to Sugar Aloes (Michael Osuna) on the passing of his mother, 75-year-old Jean Osuna Samuel, and to the family of calypsonian Companero.

Almost 12 years later and on the home-stretch to completion, the Holy Rosary RC Church’s restoration project remains close to $7 million in debt in the face of growing demands on its influence as an agent of change in one of the more troubled communities of T&T.

One Canada-based support group reports on its website that in 1999, the Central Statistical Office recorded over 16 per cent of the country’s reported crime were in areas covered by the pastoral district alone.

Today, chairman of the Pastoral Council, comprising Holy Rosary and St Martin’s in east Port-of-Spain, Paul Massiah says restoration of the historic structure needs to be matched by deeper forays into the burning issues of the communities from which its congregation emerges.

“A lot of people within the community were baptised Catholic, but not a lot are practising Catholics,” Massiah told T&T Guardian. “They are not really involved.”

The role of activist parish priest Fr Clyde Harvey is well documented and in 2011, he was awarded a Humming Bird Medal (Gold) for “loyal and devoted service to the country.”

Massiah says he has also noted an increase in attendance accompanying improvements in the church infrastructure but remains focused on more active engagement of its work by the wider communities.

He has also welcomed the contributions of individuals and organisations that became involved in ensuring that the historical structure was restored and are now engaged in wiping out the remaining debt.

On Sunday from 5 pm, for example, the acclaimed Marionettes Chorale will host part four of its Hearts Beat Together series of church concerts at the Holy Rosary Church as part of the effort to clear restoration debt.

The concerts have already delivered a wide range of musical genres at the All Saints’ Anglican Church, La Romaine RC Church and at St Philip and St James RC Church.

Massiah says he is happy that despite the chorale’s own ambitions, the Marionettes has its own Property Fund to develop its own facility. It has offered its assistance to the church in this way.

“I am happy that they were willing to do that,” he said. “Definitely, we all need to help each other.”

When joined with the parish of St Martin de Pores, the Holy Rosary congregation covers a bustling, heavily-populated area Gonzales, Jerningham Avenue and Abercromby Street from Memorial Park to Duke Street.

It is estimated that the area comprises close to 3,300 households, with a population of over 11,000 people. It is a hub of social and cultural activity with four major steelbands and numerous sports and social groups.

Church leaders are hoping that property restoration efforts at the church are greeted by broader social reformation in these communities. The Marionettes Chorale has stepped forward to play its part.

The High Commission of India and Nrityanjali Theatre will jointly present a dance ballet on Kalidasa’s Shakuntalam tonight at the San Fernando Academy of the Performing Arts (Sapa) and today at the Central Bank Auditorium, Port-of-Spain. Both shows are at 7 pm. 

The story of Abhigyanam Shakuntalam has been written by Kalidasa. Kalidasa was a classical Sanskrit writer widely regarded as ancient India’s greatest poet and playwright. It is said that his supreme levels of imagination and craft were divinely inspired. All his works have a different mood, a different sense of drama and pace. He constitutes Indian poetics.

India’s noted poet Rabindranath Tagore said in Shakuntalam, Kalidasa’s insight into human emotions at every stage of life—his depiction of love, nature, beauty, separation, grief, longing—is beautifully depicted.

“Shakuntalam represents the change between the physicality and the spiritual,” Tagore said. “The Gandharva marriage between Shakuntala and Dushyanta is a physicality, their separation a penance and when finally cleansed, their coming together. 

“As long as the creatures are the embodiment of creativity of the human mind, Shakuntalam will be remembered forever.”

A release describes the plot of Shakuntalam as a love story between Dushyanta and Shakuntala. She was the daughter of the heavenly nymph Menaka. She was brought up in a hermitage by her foster father sage Kanva. King Dushyanta from the neighbouring kingdom fell in love with her. 

Their love, union and separation are dramatically depicted by a range of emotions (abhinaya), together with a combination of Indian classical and folk dance movements choreographed by Alan Rajah and Mondira Balkaransingh. 

Alana Rajah takes the role of Shakuntala and Kyle Poliah as Dushyanta. They will be supported by a cast of over 20 performers. 

The story is skillfully woven by the storyteller Sharda Maharaj. The dancers will be accompanied by Prashant Patasar on tablas, and his sister, the sitarist Dr Sharda Patasar. The Malik Tassa Drummers will bring Shakuntala to a close. 

More info
Tickets are available at the box offices at Sapa,  the Central Bank, the High Commission of India and The Mahatma Gandhi Institute for Cultural Co-Operation. For further information, visit nrityanjalitrinidad.com or call 640-4107/ 6838.

Dr Rajendra S Rampaul
Pink Hibiscus Breast Health Specialist

Many patients are quite interested in getting tests to ensure that they are well. Sometimes they have no choice and have to undergo many tests due to sickness or a symptom such as a breast lump or a pain in the abdomen. It is not unusual for women in my speciality (breast surgery) to be concerned about breast cancer. 

One of the most interesting things about practice in Trinidad is that most patients have a significant “needle phobia” here. And, of course, as a breast surgeon, when I sit to talk about having a simple office procedure with a small needle to get a diagnosis, that is almost always met with apprehension. I’ll take a minute to explore the common myths about a needle biopsy. 

1. Needle biopsies are painful. With adequate local anaesthetic any form of tru-cut biopsy can often be rendered painless, this is not different to going to the dentist and having some procedure done on your tooth. 

2. Needle biopsies of breast lumps can cause cancer to spread. I can reassure you that this is also not true and there is no evidence to support this. Millions of women have had these procedures done and they go on to provide the ample data we have that some types of cancers are curative.
So these are not reasons a woman should use to avoid a needle biopsy, however it would be much better in real life if there was a simpler way to arrive at a diagnosis. Many time patients would ask me, “Why don’t we just do an ultrasound or a mammogram?” 

It is worth spending a minute to explain that ultrasounds and mammograms and even examination by our hands will provide some level of information, but these are just pictures or texture that we are feeling, these are not definitive clues or definitive answers to what is going on, that is in the realm of the pathologist. 

Pathologists can only function with tissue given to them. Ultrasounds and mammograms take pictures and pictures, whilst they can tell what something looks like, can never tell you what mood it’s in, not dissimilar to a family photograph of a grumpy old grandfather who looks rather handsome in the picture. 

Many strides have been made in exploring the realm of a blood test for breast cancer or other types of cancers. Currently, there is a standard assay called tumour markers that is done, such as CEA, CA15-3 and CA125. These tumour markers, CEA, CA15-3 and CA125, these blood tests can often be misleading to the average person in that they may be mistaken often as a screening modality for cancer, especially in breast cancer. 

Ideally they do not function like that, they are excellent tools to identify if there are changes when a definitive diagnosis have been made already but in general, they do not function in a robust, isolated way as a screening modality. 

There has been excellent progress in the role in what is called auto antibodies which is the immune response to these tumour markers and that has a greater specificity in defining what could be abnormal. 

Nonetheless, these tests still fall short in many ways in that they may provide false answers, and certain types of cancers may not cause a rise in the blood levels so that alarm bells may never go off and the patient may have a significant amount of cancer in their system.

Valdeen Shears-Neptune

It was with nostalgic pride that Alicia Ward recounted the last two years of her life. “Oh, it’s too much, I am happy and sad at the same time,” she said during an interview last Tuesday, the day the results of the 2016 SEA were released to schools throughout the nation.

No, Ward is not one of the thousands of anxious parents who, since May, were waiting with bated breath on the results of the annual exam.

Actually, she is the next best thing, having guided, taught and mothered the class of 24 girls from the St Charles Tunapuna RC School. So much so that on Tuesday, the school attained 22 full passes from the 24 students in Ward’s Standard Five class.

Ward’s pride and joy comes from her pupils’ achievements. Her sadness stems from the fact that her pupils, whom she has shared a close bond with over the last two years, are now moving on.

Ward would be the first to tell anyone that “her pumpkins” were grounded and prepared from the time they entered the school some seven years ago.

“I simply took that which was already present and polished it into what was the final phase of their primary education,” reasoned Ward, a teacher for 15 years.

Overall, the school’s three Standard Five classes excelled at this year’s exam. Ward, who recalled sitting with the other two class teachers and planning the roll out of the curriculum, also firmly believes that the success of any school weighs heavily on its leadership. She credited the school’s achievement on the strong, astute guidance of its principal, Michelle Lum Young.

Ward said it was hard not to follow the high standards she had set before her, as the school is big on regularity and punctuality. She believes the stage has also been set and the foundation laid for the pupils’ transition from primary to secondary school life.

Ward also extended kudos to the school’s security officer, Miss Pierre, who often acted as the pupils’ surrogate grandmother, having helped to nurture and protect most of them and watch them grow since age five.

Ward, though, was very vocal about the lack of national validation for schools deemed outside the “top 200.” This, she said, is a sentiment shared by other schools nationwide.  Often, she noted, it was the “last picked” primary schools that produced great success stories, which went unrecognised.

According to Ward, validation for her and other staff members at St Charles Tunapuna RC comes not in public recognition, but in striving for continued excellence.

Just how did they do it?

Ward said at the beginning of Standard Four, apprehension and fear gave way to respectful acceptance. A study timetable was developed from the onset, daily and weekly revisions and collaborative learning particularly on school projects, with one golden rule...no group was to have any best friends.

Lessons started the second term during Standard Four and developed into three days a week, and on Saturdays from 10 am to 2 pm, right up until SEA. Meeting with parents was also high on Ward’s agenda, this was aside from the meetings every term set by the school’s administration.

While this may sound ominous to some parents, for Ward this could have meant discussions on the child’s development or simply just to say “Thank you for your support.”

Ward is big on parental support, as to date, she still seeks out the same from her parents, even though she is the eldest of nine offspring.

The holder of an Undergraduate and Masters Degree in Education from UWI, Ward said she also utilised peer tutoring and would often have the strongest pupils assist those with challenges.

“The introduction of the Continuous Assessment Component (CAC) made it a bit challenging as the syllabus for maths and language arts did not change. It certainly required a greater level of organisation,” she added.

For the mother of one, this often meant long weekends working and often prepping into the wee hours of the morning.

Last year July also saw her occupied with preparing them for what she considers now the best assessment tool for educational evaluation, until the Education Ministry can find alternative and non-subjective means. Ward also ensured that she engaged her young charges in meaningful activities every single time she stood before them. As for distractions, she prides herself in using it as fodder for further discussions.

The American culture, she said, appears to have taken over among children, but when her pupils’ attention veered towards this, she quickly reminded them of the importance of knowing their own country first. She attributed quick wits in her ability to be a step ahead of quick thinking young minds.

Her pupils didn’t always give 100 per cent, she recalled, but because they were aware that she was prone to calling on them daily, they prepared.

Ward assured she would not lose touch with the class of 2016, which had touched her life in so many ways.

The placements 
Nine at Bishops Anstey East, two at St Joseph’s Convent (St Joseph), one at St Joseph’s Convent (Port-of-Spain), one at St Georges, three at Caribbean Union College, one at St Francois Girls, one at Holy Name Convent, two at El Dorado West and one at El Dorado East. Another pupil will start classes at the Tunapuna Secondary, one will attend the St Augustine Secondary, while the other will go to Aranguez Secondary.

Raunchy and revealing, the burlesque musical Buss de Mark played for two nights last week at the Big Black Box, Woodbrook. The production was a staged reading of a work in progress written by Zeleca Julien and Alexander Johnson. It was put on by the gender and sexual minorities organisation I am One. Members and allies of the T&T lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) community comprised the ensemble cast, who are also credited as co-writers.

The production was the culmination of I am One’s inaugural month long Pride Arts Festival.

The play is subtitled A soca, dancehall, calypso, chutney musical comedy all about family in Trinidad. Director Timmia Hearn, in remarks to the audience after the show, said the work was meant to give local queers an alternative to the dominant media characterisations shown in US cultural products like the Broadway play and film Rent. T&T queers have their own ways and this show sought to portray them.

Hinging on the conceit of the game of whe whe—the indigenous, illegal form of the State-run gambling franchise Play Whe—the play’s four main storylines showed various aspects of the underground world of T&T queers. Musical motifs, like the play’s eponymous original theme song, further united the action of the two-hour work.

One central story was the rivalry between a lesbian community leader, soca star Shane, and a bad-john closeted gay politician, MP Benedict. Another was the sham marriage of shalwar-wearing gay man Prikash, a pipe contractor, and his butch lesbian wife Zion, a manager of soca singers. A third story revolved around Maxi Man, a flamboyantly gay maxi taxi driver. 

Music was one of the play’s strengths. Original compositions and arrangements alternated with satirical revisions of existing songs like Andre Tanker’s Basement Party. Some of these soared; the musical battle between the pro-box drain women supporting politician Benedict and the pro-pipe men working for Prikash drew a well-earned round of applause from Thursday’s audience. “You can’t lay pipe,” the women sang to the tune of Kitchener’s Toco Band. “Who tell you so?” the men rejoined, “pipe have to lay!” 

The original works by musical director Joseph Lopez show great promise; I particularly enjoyed Benedict and Shane’s duet When Men Threaten Me: “When men threaten me hell does come down,” Benedict sweetly sang, “I go kill your whole family one by one.”

Buss de Mark made its first appearance last year at the same space as a staged reading, billed as a Calypso Cabaret. Some of the cast from that reading returned in this iteration, more fleshed out. One such character was the city panty vendor Jemma, a gray-haired granny who in one scene admits to Maxi Man that she has had lesbian proclivities herself. That line, too risqué to reproduce in a national newspaper, was a hilarious understatement delivered with superb comic timing. It was one of several gems in the play. 

Another gem came from Vagrant, a homeless beggar played by co-author Zeleca Julien. With the preface “All protocols observed,” she launched into a speech extolling the virtues of KFC while standing by the cashier buying a dinner special. 

There is no doubt the script has a ways to go before the piece can be called ready. Plot holes abound. For example, though the enmity between Shane and Benedict is based on the former blaming the latter for her brother’s death, the audience is never privy to any details of the backstory. 
And burlesque tendencies notwithstanding, the characterisations are such broadly comic stereotypes that at times it is difficult for one to reconcile the work with its producers’ intentions.

I left Thursday’s performance wondering for whom the play is intended. To a primarily LGBTQI audience, such as the one attending the June 30 show, the plot points and characterisations would come across as humour based on old, familiar types. 

The violent lesbian gangster, the duplicitous gay politician, the closeted young church boy all make appearances in a script which draws laughs from its liberal use of T&T’s stock of gay stereotypes. 

But using such stereotypes does not advance the discourse around T&T LGBTQI people and lifestyles, and a straight person unfamiliar with that world would only find his or her own prejudices reinforced. In this play, all gay men are raucous and oversexed like the Maxi Man; all lesbians are mannish and abusive like Shane the soca star; and the whole LGBTQI community is only interested in sex, weed and bacchanal.

No script can be all things to all people. It might be asking too much of a work with its origins in a cabaret show to give nuanced depictions of a population that is as diverse as it is misunderstood. However, I am afraid if the audience is broader, it won’t be laughing with but at the community the show is supposed to represent.

Editor’s note:
Photos used with this story are reproduced with the courtesy of Ulelli Verbeke, an LGBTQI activist from Guyana who attended the Pride Arts Festival to do a photo series called Out of the Box—Gender Expression.

Spoken Word poetry and competition continue to increase in popularity, and participants are coming from all different ages and backgrounds. This year, the first ever Republic Bank National Primary School Spoken Word Showcase, presented in conjunction with the Two Cents Movement, saw 14 students from 11 schools showing off their skills. 

The competition took place at the Central Bank Auditorium on June 27. The students, aged nine to 11, had participated in a specially designed and targeted spoken word workshop over five consecutive Sundays with leading spoken word artists, Idrees Saleem and Derron Sandy, who also hosted the program. 

Most of the children spoke on serious topics such as abuse and violence. All participants were cheered on by students and teachers from their respective schools. 

Haylee Francois, from Marabella Girls Anglican, pleaded with people, men, women and children, to stop abusing each other, whether physically, verbally, emotionally, sexually or otherwise. Zafiyah Miller of Arima Centenary Primary School told bullies to stay away from her, or she would hurt their feelings too. Renee Roopan, from Arouca Anglican Primary School, took the audience into her dreams as she talked about exploring a shower of beautiful white rain. 

Ameriah Francois, of Arouca Anglican Primary School, asked the audience and the people of T&T to be kind, because it is the right thing to do. Kurnisha Plowden from Atwell's Educational Institute sent chills down the spine of the audience as she related a nightmare of waiting for jumbies to kill her in the night. Jannah Marie Mohammed, of Curepe AC Primary School, said there was no valid excuse for abuse and pleaded with everyone to help stop it. 

Danielle Suite, also of Atwell's Educational Institute, said she was put here to encourage those around her to believe that they can make a difference and to follow their dreams, regardless of those who may discourage them. Malikah Miller, also from Arima Centenary Primary School and Zafiyah's sister, had the audience laughing as she talked about not wanting to doing laundry. 

The first of three boys in the competition, Ronaldo Spencer of St Pius Government Primary, asked adults to listen to him and take him seriously when he spoke, even though he was small, because the negativity around him affected him too. Ryan Lucas from St Dominic's RC said he was unstoppable and unconquerable, and he wanted those around him to feel they are something good. 

Mariah Francois of Macauley Government Primary School asked, “What is it with you and crime?” She said if everyone took a stand and worked as a team, they could stop crime. T'Shara Haynes from St Mary's Mucurapo Girls' RC school pleaded musicians to think about the messages they are sending with their music, because it was meant to uplift, but is often reckless and relentless. 

Tianna Joseph of La Horquetta North Government Primary School asked what bullies gain by causing their victims pain and encouraged the audience to join her in saying that bullying should stop today. Shem Quashie from Marabella Boys Anglican called on gunmen to “slow their roll” and on youngsters to stop using drugs. 

Saleem and Sandy said the purpose of the Inspire Tour by the Two Cents Movement was stepping out and letting people know that every single citizen has a valuable contribution to make to T&T. They said poets have a responsibility to bring positive messages. 

After deliberation by judges Arielle John, Ariana Herbert and Mtima Solwazi, Danielle Suite, T'Shara Haynes and Ronaldo Spencer were chosen as third, second and first respectively. As winner of the competition, Spencer received a luxury Cross pen and journal, as well as the opportunity to make a spoken word video as well as perform at the upcoming Cascadoo Caribbean New Voices International Festival of Spoken Word. 

He also will get a year long mentorship with the Two Cents Movement and will become a Primary School Spoken Word Ambassador.

Spencer said everyone's piece was great in its own way. “It was a good feeling to be a winner of this, first time I'm actually doing it and I came to win and it was fantastic and a big surprise.”