In 2018, at­tor­ney Ayan­nah Flem­ing packed her bags and jet­ted off to Nicaragua on a two-week ad­ven­ture as part of a trav­el ex­pe­ri­ence called “Un­set­tled”. She would live with strangers of var­i­ous ages and na­tion­al­i­ties, find­ing kin­ship with these peo­ple who were at a sim­i­lar place in life. They were all seek­ing some­thing new. By the time she re­turned to Trinidad, Flem­ing was con­vinced that she want­ed to shift her ca­reer path and live more bold­ly.

“One of the things that I took away from the ex­pe­ri­ence was liv­ing bold­ly. That is one of the cor­ner­stones of liv­ing “Un­set­tled.” It's grab­bing life by the horns and just tak­ing every op­por­tu­ni­ty and rel­ish­ing it; not be­ing afraid of mak­ing de­ci­sions about your life,” she told Sun­day Guardian.

“Be­fore I left, my work­ing arrange­ment was reg­u­lar. As an at­tor­ney-at-law you work long hours, long days, week­ends, pub­lic hol­i­days. It's a very de­mand­ing pro­fes­sion, but by the time I got back, I was like: no, that's not what I want for my­self.”

As a civ­il lawyer, Flem­ing en­gaged in le­gal work un­der a se­nior at­tor­ney in cham­bers ad­vis­ing clients and man­ag­ing a heavy case­load of com­plex com­mer­cial lit­i­ga­tion mat­ters. On her re­turn from Nicaragua, she ap­proached her boss, whom she de­scribed as “very un­der­stand­ing and lov­ing” and he agreed for her to work three days a week. She still does lit­i­ga­tion, how­ev­er, her fo­cus now is on front-end tasks like draw­ing up con­tracts and be­ing in­volved with clients be­fore mat­ters go to court.

She now has more time to de­vote to her moth­er's hair sa­lon, Le Monde de Paula Ltd where she as­sists in every as­pect of the busi­ness, es­pe­cial­ly man­age­ment. She par­tic­u­lar­ly en­joys en­gag­ing with cus­tomers. Re­cent­ly, they opened their own dis­trib­u­tor­ship for hair prod­ucts.

“It's a very re­fresh­ing thing to just get away from the con­stant law and I en­joy it tremen­dous­ly.”

Flem­ing has al­so tried her hand at plant­i­ng cu­cum­bers, toma­toes, pas­sion fruit and a man­go tree, and plans to delve deep­er in­to farm­ing. She nur­tures “pro­found” re­spect for farm­ers with whom she has formed re­la­tion­ships from her week­ly trips to the mar­ket and has adopt­ed the mantra of one farmer: “I may not al­ways have mon­ey, but I al­ways have some­thing to eat.” Flem­ing con­sid­ers this to be the ul­ti­mate de­c­la­ra­tion of free­dom.

Back in 2017 Flem­ing had been prac­tis­ing law for about four years and longed for a change. Stuck at a cross­road, she was con­tem­plat­ing her next move when fate lit­er­al­ly struck.

“(Ear­li­er), I had been pre­tend­ing to be an elec­tri­cian and a bulb ex­plod­ed over me right where I was sleep­ing. I had to be hos­pi­talised, get a tetanus shot and had to use crutch­es be­cause my left foot had been in­jured and I couldn't walk for a month,” she re­called.

“I had a whole month to fig­ure things out and of course, I had seen this “Un­set­tled” ex­pe­ri­ence ad­ver­tised on so­cial me­dia. The con­cept is you and com­plete strangers liv­ing to­geth­er for a pe­ri­od of time. I de­cid­ed: yeah, this is the thing I need to do to as­sess where I am in my life.”

Flem­ing em­barked on her ad­ven­ture to Nicaragua with­out fear of kid­nap­ping or hu­man traf­fick­ing, fly­ing via Mi­a­mi, Flori­da. The on­ly time she be­came con­cerned for her safe­ty was when she re­alised that the trip to the Surf Sanc­tu­ary in the south-west­ern part of the coun­try where she would stay, was a two-hour taxi ride from the air­port with just her and the non-Eng­lish-speak­ing taxi dri­ver.

Ayannah Fleming at a lookout near the Surf Sanctuary, Nicaragua.

“Some parts of the dri­ve were com­plete­ly des­o­late. It dawned on me that I could dis­ap­pear in Nicaragua and I would not be able to help my­self.”

But Flem­ing was un­daunt­ed. Af­ter all, she had shrugged off be­ing turned away at the air­port in Man­agua a few days ear­li­er and had still made it to her des­ti­na­tion.

“I had got­ten to Nicaragua and I didn't have my yel­low fever vac­ci­na­tion card. I was hot­ly de­port­ed back to Flori­da. It was ter­ri­ble. It was def­i­nite­ly a very de­feat­ed feel­ing. I got to ride back to Flori­da in first class, but that did not help. It's the epit­o­me of op­pres­sion, you know you get there to an­oth­er coun­try and you get de­port­ed.”

The im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer at Mi­a­mi had found her tale quite hu­mor­ous; as had her fam­i­ly. She end­ed up spend­ing three days with rel­a­tives in Mi­a­mi but was not de­terred.

“I got my (im­mu­ni­sa­tion) card and I said: Ayan­nah what do you have to lose. I was like mon­ey, but that was some­thing that I could al­ways make back. I booked an­oth­er flight right back to Nicaragua.”

When she fi­nal­ly ar­rived at Surf Sanc­tu­ary, the deeply wel­com­ing re­cep­tion from her hosts who were from Thai­land and New York made up for her ear­li­er set­back. She met “quite a nice mix of peo­ple” of var­i­ous ages and back­grounds. The man­agers of the prop­er­ty were from Switzer­land and South Africa. Her fel­low ad­ven­tur­ers were from places like Lebanon, Ire­land, the US and Cana­da, and there was al­so a la­dy from Bermu­da.

Flem­ing was es­pe­cial­ly in­trigued by a grand­fa­ther in his late 50s or ear­ly 60s from Cal­i­for­nia who had rid­den his huge mo­tor­bike all the way from Cal­i­for­nia to Nicaragua.

Ayannah Fleming and other participants of the "Unsettled" Nicaragua experience at a beach.

“It was amaz­ing to meet all of these peo­ple; chefs, busi­ness own­ers, lawyers like me co­ex­ist­ing in this place, try­ing to learn from each oth­er, but al­so try­ing to fig­ure out where we were go­ing in life; what was the point of all of this work and ef­fort and jour­ney­ing. It was def­i­nite­ly a re­treat. You have no in­hi­bi­tions be­cause every­body is on the same page.”

The group had won­der­ful ex­changes, set­ting up small in­for­mal work­shops among them­selves and shar­ing knowl­edge. One of the men was from Bul­gar­ia and had a lit­tle ses­sion on cryp­tocur­ren­cy with who­ev­er was in­ter­est­ed. They even cel­e­brat­ed a Valen­tine's Day. While ladies from Lebanon who were de­sign­ers dec­o­rat­ed the space, Flem­ing and a chef from South Africa pre­pared a love­ly meal that in­clud­ed boiled corn, stuffed jalapenos, cous­cous, ke­babs, pas­ta and meats, giv­ing a win­dow in­to their own cul­ture while us­ing lo­cal in­gre­di­ents they had bought at a shop.

Some­times they would go out for din­ner and ex­pe­ri­ence the lo­cal cui­sine. It was at one of these restau­rants that Flem­ing had the best lob­ster in her life, she said. She fond­ly re­called that the la­dy who owned the place kept re­fer­ring to her as “Mi Hi­ja” a term of en­dear­ment like “Dear” lit­er­al­ly mean­ing my daugh­ter.

“It was beau­ti­ful, un­script­ed. You could at­tend any ac­tiv­i­ties you want­ed.”

Go­ing to the beach, surf­ing, tak­ing a ride on a mule along the shore, vol­cano trekking...there was nev­er a dull mo­ment, Flem­ing rem­i­nisced.

She did have a cul­ture shock though in the city of Grana­da on the West­ern side of the coun­try where sev­er­al restau­rants of­fered out­door din­ing. Chil­dren ap­peared as she and her group were din­ing and asked for the rem­nants of their food.

“One of the guys gave to a lit­tle girl. She sat down on the ta­ble right next to us eat­ing and two more chil­dren ap­peared and start­ed eat­ing from the bowl. For me, that was just a huge eye-open­er. The things that you take for grant­ed and these chil­dren are just ask­ing for refuse so they could have some­thing to eat. That was def­i­nite­ly shock­ing and heart­break­ing,” she said.

She al­so wit­nessed the rev­er­ence with how the peo­ple treat­ed their dead in a fu­ner­al pro­ces­sion with a horse-drawn car­riage dec­o­rat­ed in black lace.

Flem­ing who has lived in Bar­ba­dos as a law stu­dent and vis­it­ed Lon­don, Por­tu­gal and a host of places in the US in­clud­ing Las Ve­gas and LA, said the trip to Nicaragua was the most lib­er­at­ing ex­pe­ri­ence of her life. Whether hap­py mem­o­ries or sad, the peo­ple, the bonds she formed, the land­scape, all made for an ex­hil­a­rat­ing ad­ven­ture that freed the soul and em­bold­ened her to push back so­ci­etal con­straints and ex­pec­ta­tions and ex­plore oth­er as­pects of her life that would make her tru­ly hap­py.

Flem­ing, raised by a sin­gle moth­er in Wood­brook and a stu­dent of Prov­i­dence Girls, was not pres­sured by her fam­i­ly to fol­low a de­fined path in life.

“They would sup­port me as long as I wasn't do­ing any­thing il­le­gal,” she joked.

How­ev­er, she was def­i­nite­ly torn while choos­ing her course of study at UWI and was per­suad­ed by an aunt to opt out of her first love, So­ci­ol­o­gy and in­stead, choose law.

“I fell in­to the tra­di­tion; you go to school, you go to uni­ver­si­ty, you get a job, you prac­tise law. One thing just fol­lows the oth­er. It makes you stop and re­alise this is the run-of-the-mill, the usu­al route. But is this what I re­al­ly want to be do­ing with my life?”

The free-spir­it­ed 31-year-old fi­nal­ly re­alised that she was drawn to a less rigid ca­reer path.

“Once some­body told me they thought I was in hos­pi­tal­i­ty and I was so flat­tered.

“Peo­ple are like 'you're just al­ways so hap­py, en­er­getic and bub­bly.' Well, I have a good life. I have good peo­ple in my life. And I'm very grate­ful for that. The say­ing is true: good friends are bet­ter than pock­et mon­ey.”

De­spite her easy­go­ing na­ture, Flem­ing said there were cer­tain things she would al­ways be adamant about like re­spect for oth­ers.

She has the great­est ad­mi­ra­tion for her moth­er, Paula, who worked as a se­cu­ri­ty guard in a bank, then be­came an ad­min­is­tra­tive as­sis­tant be­fore fi­nal­ly own­ing her own busi­ness. Her 84-year-old grand­moth­er, Hil­ler­ine, whom Flem­ing said she “loves to the end of the earth,” has al­so shaped her. Hil­ler­ine would ac­com­pa­ny her moth­er to do do­mes­tic work and lat­er be­came a reg­is­tered nurse.

Though con­tent­ed with her choice to ad­just her lifestyle, Flem­ing not­ed that free­dom does not have to mean the same for every­one. For some, it could mean sim­ply de­vel­op­ing a new habit, writ­ing more, tak­ing an hour or two per day to just re­flect. The im­por­tant thing is tak­ing con­trol and dis­cov­er­ing your true self, she felt.

The avid na­ture en­thu­si­ast, who plans to take more trips to Latin Amer­i­ca, is count­ing down the days when she can re­turn to hik­ing every week­end or es­cap­ing to beach­es like Carlisle Bay, Bar­ba­dos and Cot­ton Bay, To­ba­go.

“Be­ing in the fresh air with na­ture set­tles you in a way I don't think any­thing in life I've ex­pe­ri­enced can. It's about ap­pre­ci­at­ing that life is big­ger than you and as much as we like to think we are the mas­ters of all things, na­ture is very hum­bling. Some­times when I'm hik­ing my mantra is 'I give and I re­ceive,' be­cause you're breath­ing in and breath­ing out in be­tween the trees and there's just this ex­change of en­er­gy that is on­go­ing. It makes you re­alise we are just here for a time and are all de­pen­dent on each oth­er.”

On Mon­day, three young­sters sad­ly per­ished in a fire at their home in Mar­aval. Flem­ing said she heard the fire truck pass right near her house and hoped that there had not been a ter­ri­ble ac­ci­dent. Ref­er­enc­ing the in­ci­dent, she said we of­ten take for grant­ed how much time we have on earth and are al­ways wait­ing for the right time to ful­fil our dreams.

“The right time is now,” she said.

Q&A with Ayan­nah Flem­ing

What does eman­ci­pa­tion mean to you?

I ar­gue ve­he­ment­ly with col­leagues about what it means to be eman­ci­pat­ed in 2021. It's more than just the recog­ni­tion of the strug­gles of our fore­fa­thers and where they have come and what they were de­prived of or what they were stripped of in a very or­gan­ised man­ner. It is more so about the recog­ni­tion of where we are to­day and how we over­come the sys­tems that still op­press us as a peo­ple. It is about recog­nis­ing in each of us there is that pow­er of mak­ing a choice to do bet­ter and to be bet­ter and to try to find cre­ative ways–not il­le­gal– around the sys­tems that do not serve us as a peo­ple.

What sto­ries did your fel­low ad­ven­tur­ers have?

There was a guy who had start­ed his own clean­ing com­pa­ny. It was just him. He was from Chica­go and he grew that busi­ness in­to mul­ti­ple busi­ness­es to the point where he could ac­tu­al­ly sell the busi­ness­es as a go­ing con­cern. It was an eye-open­er for me be­cause some­times we view busi­ness­es as peo­ple, we get very at­tached. It's not some­thing we grow and then re­lease.

The friend I made from South Africa, the chef, worked on cruise lines etc and she de­cid­ed she want­ed to turn a diff chap­ter in her life and now she is a life coach. It was in­spir­ing to see some­one who had trained in a par­tic­u­lar in­dus­try and achieved a lot could de­cide I want to do some­thing diff.

There was a book ed­i­tor who has hors­es and she was con­tent with her life, but she want­ed to have a diff ex­pe­ri­ence. It showed me that it doesn't mat­ter who you are or what you're do­ing in life there's the op­por­tu­ni­ty to change, you al­ways have that pow­er to get away; change your per­spec­tive on things, change your sit­u­a­tion. Peo­ple some­times just need to get away and fig­ure things out.

What was your biggest take­away from the peo­ple in Nicaragua?

The biggest take­away was you just have to be re­al­ly open to ex­pe­ri­ences when­ev­er you step out of your com­fort zone, whether the peo­ple are speak­ing your lan­guage or not. Be pre­pared to em­brace and ac­cept things that are not you, your tra­di­tions, your un­der­stand­ing of what things ought to be.