Nass­er Khan

Sis­ter An­net­ta Alexan­der is a nun with the Sis­ters of St Joseph of Cluny, whose head­quar­ters are at The Provin­cialate at St Joseph's Con­vent in Port-of-Spain.

She has been the Provin­cial Leader since 2009, a lec­tur­er at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Open Cam­pus, St Au­gus­tine, since 2000, and prin­ci­pal at St Xavier's Pri­vate School since 2002. She was the prin­ci­pal of Sa­cred Heart Girls' RC School from 1994 to 2002, hav­ing start­ed as a teacher in 1986.

Sr Alexan­der is al­so chair­per­son of the Cluny Cen­tral Board of Ed­u­ca­tion–un­der whose purview is the run­ning of the St Joseph's Con­vent in Port-of-Spain, San Fer­nan­do and St Joseph; Prov­i­dence Catholic School and two pri­vate pri­ma­ry schools, Maria Regi­na and St Xavier's in St Joseph, as well as schools in Grena­da, St Vin­cent and St Lu­cia.

She is pres­i­dent elect of the T&T Read­ing As­so­ci­a­tion, pres­i­dent of the Con­fer­ence of Re­li­gious of the An­tilles 2015 and has been vice pres­i­dent of the Girl Guides As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T since 2013, rep­re­sent­ing that or­gan­i­sa­tion at events in Cyprus, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Jor­dan, South Africa and Lon­don.

The Sun­day Guardian re­cent­ly caught up with the very busy Sr An­net­ta for her re­flec­tions:

Q: Tell us about your ear­ly years and your fam­i­ly, where you were born, where you grew up?

A: I was born in Kath­leen Street, St James, and grew up in Up­per Bournes Road,in St James, with my moth­er and fa­ther and four oth­er sib­lings– one boy, the el­dest, then my­self and three oth­ers among whom were twins.

At this Christ­mas time what mes­sage would you like to give to T&T?

As Catholics, we cel­e­brate the Ad­vent sea­son in prepa­ra­tion for Christ­mas. Dur­ing this time we pre­pare spir­i­tu­al­ly for the com­ing of Christ, we pre­pare our homes as well. My mind goes back to Christ­mas at home when we spent time prepar­ing by way of clean­ing, scrub­bing, paint­ing. My moth­er sewed cush­ions, cur­tains and the works. The Sacra­ment of Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion was al­ways on the list. Then came time for the cook­ing of all the Christ­mas fare. We girls were all in­volved, as­sist­ing my moth­er with the cook­ing and bak­ing.

One thing that stands out is the fact that my moth­er en­cour­aged us to take time to think of oth­ers who might be less for­tu­nate. She there­fore al­lowed me to in­vite some­one who was not as for­tu­nate as we were to come home to share Christ­mas with us. I al­ways opt­ed to go to the or­phan­age to bring home one of the chil­dren. On one oc­ca­sion I asked for one child, on­ly to be told that the par­tic­u­lar child had a sis­ter and a broth­er and they did not want them sep­a­rat­ed.

You can imag­ine my moth­er's face when in­stead of walk­ing in with one child I walked in with three chil­dren. So in­stead of hav­ing sev­en mouths to feed, she had ten but we made do. Ac­tu­al­ly we ex­tend­ed this to the school hol­i­days as well. If every fam­i­ly would do this, there would be few­er lone­ly peo­ple at this time.

When and how did you re­ceive your call­ing to be­come a nun?

My call to the con­vent I can say came about by sim­ply ask­ing God each time I prayed to tell me what he want­ed me to do with my life. I knew I want­ed to teach, but how to live out that dream of be­ing a teacher was not in my thoughts. Then one day af­ter I left school, while teach­ing at the Mu­cu­rapo Girls' Pri­ma­ry School, I dis­tinct­ly heard the call to re­li­gious life.

Af­ter at­tend­ing a come and see ses­sion to which I was in­vit­ed by the Sis­ters of St Joseph of Cluny, I knew then that God had an­swered my prayer. Six months lat­er, I en­tered the Sis­ters of St Joseph of Cluny Novi­tiate in Arou­ca. Af­ter three years in train­ing I was sent to var­i­ous is­lands to teach for brief pe­ri­ods of time, then on to the Catholic Women's Train­ing Col­lege where I pre­pared for my teach­ers' diplo­ma.

Who were the peo­ple who have in­flu­enced you the most?

I was heav­i­ly in­flu­enced by my moth­er, who I saw as a woman of strength with a de­ter­mi­na­tion to let noth­ing pre­vent her from achiev­ing her dreams. She was a prayer­ful woman. I wit­nessed her get­ting down on her knees in our home and pray­ing to God for her needs and those of her fam­i­ly. She en­cour­aged us to pray to­geth­er as a fam­i­ly. She, with my fa­ther, ac­com­pa­nied us to Mass every Sun­day.

She taught us to make do with what we had. She nev­er bor­rowed from any­one so she owed no one. We learned to do with­out that which she and my fa­ther were un­able to give us. And above all she taught us nev­er to be en­vi­ous of what oth­er peo­ple had be­cause one nev­er knew how they achieved it.

I have been in­flu­enced by my youngest sis­ter who seemed to pos­sess some of the virtues I wish I had, for ex­am­ple, that of gen­tle­ness, and thought­ful­ness and be­ing very so­cia­ble. I was al­so in­flu­enced by a few close friends who strive for ex­cel­lence in all that they do, who are sim­ple in their lifestyle and gen­er­ous. I al­so sur­round my­self with peo­ple who are pos­i­tive thinkers.

What at­tract­ed you to your or­der?

I was at­tract­ed to the Sis­ters of St Joseph of Cluny, I think, for the sim­ple rea­son that I went to Prov­i­dence Girls' where I was taught by Sr Regi­na, who is a sis­ter of St Joseph of Cluny. The prin­ci­pal, Sr Pius, was a sis­ter of St Joseph of Cluny, so I guess that drew me to the con­gre­ga­tion.

My de­sire to give ser­vice led me to Girl Guid­ing, so I be­came in­volved in the Girl Guides As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T where to­day I am the pres­i­dent.

I see guid­ing as an or­gan­i­sa­tion whose ob­jec­tive is the de­vel­op­ment of the young women of our coun­try, help­ing them to reach their fullest po­ten­tial and do their part in ser­vice of God and their coun­try. Thi­sis so im­por­tant to­day when our young women are un­der threat, some of them hav­ing very lit­tle self es­teem, so they are pre­pared to al­low them­selves to be treat­ed with­out dig­ni­ty.

What ad­vice would you give to a young per­son con­sid­er­ing re­li­gious life?

The ad­vice I would give to any young per­son con­sid­er­ing re­li­gious life is to give it your best shot. If God is call­ing you, lis­ten to Him. You have noth­ing to lose and every­thing to gain. God is nev­er out­done in gen­eros­i­ty. I am hap­py and blessed that I lis­tened and re­spond­ed pos­i­tive­ly to God's in­vi­ta­tion. If I had to do it again I would make the same choice. Be gen­er­ous. God is gen­er­ous with us. Don't let Him down. Turn deaf ears to those who dis­suade you–and there will be many–they would give you every rea­son why you should not. Be strong in your con­vic­tion.

What else would you like our read­ers to know about you?

I love na­ture. I love to dri­ve around the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah dur­ing the dry sea­son when the yel­low poui is in bloom. I love to look at the hills which are some­times dot­ted with the yel­low poui which her­alds the rainy sea­son. I feel at home when I am in a place where there is much green space, green grass, flow­er­ing trees.

I have climbed the Mara­cas hills three times tak­ing Girl Guides with me. We trav­elled via San­ta Cruz and came out op­po­site Mara­cas Beach. We swam a bit then re­turned via the same route. We al­so climbed to the Sobo Falls near Blan­chisseuse, and on an­oth­er oc­ca­sion made our way to Cumana–walk­ing along the riv­er bed, walk­ing in the shal­low ar­eas of the riv­er, be­ing pulled across by rope in the deep­er ar­eas, for about one hour and a half be­fore ar­riv­ing at a beau­ti­ful wa­ter­fall.

I vis­it­ed the Ni­a­gara Falls in Cana­da on two oc­ca­sions, as well as places of in­ter­est in dif­fer­ent parts of Eu­rope. I climbed the Soufriere Falls in St Vin­cent on two dif­fer­ent oc­ca­sions. Those were the days, I can't do that now.

I have what I call my sa­cred space, which is a kitchen gar­den at the south­ern side of our build­ing in the heart of Port-of-Spain. Here, I spend about 45 min­utes al­most every morn­ing tend­ing to dif­fer­ent veg­eta­bles and fruits. I love to spend time there. It is for me a stress re­liev­er. I feel so proud when I pro­duce veg­eta­bles plen­ti­ful­ly, like toma­toes, patchoi, let­tuce, sor­rel, pi­geon peas, cas­sa­va, gin­ger, and sea­son­ings, and all of this with­out pes­ti­cide. So much so the com­mu­ni­ty sim­ply has to come out to pick what­ev­er is in sea­son. Re­cent­ly we had a fine crop of sug­ar ap­ples.

What ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions did you at­tend?

I at­tend­ed Mu­cu­rapo Girls' Pri­ma­ry for one year of my pri­ma­ry ed­u­ca­tion and Prov­i­dence Girls for the rest of my pri­ma­ry years as well as my sec­ondary school­ing as in those days it was an all-age school. Bach­e­lor of Ed­u­ca­tion (ho­n­ours) Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, Mona Cam­pus, Ja­maica. Teach­ers' Diplo­ma, Catholic Women's Teach­ers Col­lege. MA in Dis­tance Ed­u­ca­tion. Com­put­er Lit­er­a­cy, Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies. Ba­sic Qual­i­ty Ed­u­ca­tion (OAS).

What dai­ly mot­to do you live by?

My mot­to is God's holy will. When faced with a sit­u­a­tion I re­peat­ed­ly ask my­self, what would Je­sus do if he were in my place at the mo­ment in time? I al­so be­lieve in en­ter­ing ful­ly and joy­ful­ly in what one is asked to do, no mat­ter how unim­por­tant. This makes the bur­den lighter.

De­scribe your­self in two words, one be­gin­ning with A, the oth­er with A, your ini­tials?

I would de­scribe my­self as ac­tion-dri­ven and as­sid­u­ous (de­vot­ed, at­ten­tive, per­sis­tent, un­remit­ting).

If you have any sug­ges­tions of per­sons who should be fea­tured in this se­ries please email Nass­er Khan at nkhantt@gmail.com