Sascha Wilson
Since growing up as a child in Siparia, Dianne Ramdeo has heard of the miracles of Siparee Mai, and has been paying homage to her during the Siparee Kai Mai Festival.
On Good Friday, she was among hundreds of pilgrims who visited the statue of Siparee Mai, also known as La Divina Pastora, and paid homage to her at the La Divina Pastora RC Church in Siparia.
Ramdeo took her four-year-old daughter and her nine-year-old son to pray and make an offering to the Siparee Mai statue.
She said, “We came to church today. I have always come here as a little girl and (now I) have brought it to my kids. He (son) is diabetic. I always come here for blessings, hoping that one day he will be okay.”
She said Siparia Mai gives her hope. “She comes like a mother to us,” she added.
Ramdeo, who now lives in Chaguanas, said it’s a tradition she intends to continue and pass on to her children.
“Hopefully when they have children of their own they will continue,” she said.
During the festival, pilgrims and good Samaritans give out alms to the homeless and underprivileged, scores of whom were gathered outside the church’s compound.
Some of them came with their children. Sitting on the pavement with her children, mother of three, Tricia Vera, said she lost her job at a supermarket during the pandemic and since then she has been unemployed.
Depending on the generosity of members of the public to pay her rent, put food on the table and send her boys to school, she lamented, “I run pillar to post to get help. I need help. I need plenty of help.”
Parish priest Father Alan Hall said there were more pilgrims than last year.
“As is customary in Siparia when the statue of La Divina is moved from the church, it is placed in a separate room so that pilgrims can enter through the boys’ school and they do their lil prayers and make their lil devotion, so they come with gifts, they come with candles. They purchase olive oil, we have a barrel which they pour it into. Some of them, as they offer the oil to the statue, they bless themselves, some drink, some anoint themselves with the oil,” said the priest.
Explaining that many Hindu devotees see La Divina Pastora as the Mother of Siparia (Siparee Mai), he said they have testified to her performing many miracles in their lives as well.
Hall said his theme or his message since the start of Lent has been access to spiritual life. “Because when we have access to a life that is earthly we get so distracted and it’s all about self preservation and self focus, but the moment we access the life that spiritual is—the more self-donating our life will be,” he said.
Hall said the best way to build a community is by becoming less self-focused and self-preserving, but more self-donating in service to others.
