Tony and his friends joked as they trekked up the steep hill, try­ing to take their minds off their aching feet. They had been walk­ing for close to two hours since the ride-share dri­ver had dropped them off at dawn at the foot of the trail that led to Lu­cid Pond, a se­clud­ed riv­er none of them had ever vis­it­ed. But the pho­tos they had seen had sealed the deal.

Few artistes have shaped Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cul­tur­al con­scious­ness as pro­found­ly as El­la An­dall. Singer, song­writer, ac­tress, sto­ry­teller, cul­tur­al ac­tivist, ed­u­ca­tor and spir­i­tu­al leader, An­dall has spent more than four decades us­ing her voice to cel­e­brate African her­itage, af­firm iden­ti­ty and in­spire gen­er­a­tions of Caribbean peo­ple. To­day, she stands not on­ly as one of the coun­try’s most re­spect­ed per­form­ers but al­so as one of its most im­por­tant cul­tur­al am­bas­sadors.

The Hosay Ri­ots was a bloody in­ci­dent that oc­curred in San Fer­nan­do. Nu­mer­ous la­bels have been at­tached to the hor­rif­ic event in­volv­ing the cold-blood­ed killing of par­tic­i­pants.

South­ern Trinidad’s for­got­ten his­to­ry is be­ing brought to light through ar­chae­o­log­i­cal re­search that is un­cov­er­ing ev­i­dence of the lives of In­dige­nous peo­ple, in­den­tured labour­ers and the com­mu­ni­ties they built, while train­ing a new gen­er­a­tion of lo­cal re­searchers to pre­serve the coun­try’s her­itage.

As the year draws to a close, I find my­self think­ing about how I want to feel when the new one be­gins. Rest­ed. Ground­ed. Clear about where I am head­ing.

Pork ribs plat­ed like a starfish, topped with lo­cal kim­chi. A de­served chef’s kiss not on­ly for its pre­sen­ta­tion, but al­so for what could be eas­i­ly de­fined by the lat­est pop­u­lar food term “ten­dernism”, as the meat came off the bone with gen­tle per­sua­sion of the fork.

Dr Tonya Abra­ham is set­ting her­self a tall task—to ac­tive­ly tack­le men­tal health in young peo­ple.

For 55 years, Pan Trin­ba­go has stood at the heart of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s steel­band move­ment, help­ing to pre­serve, pro­mote and ad­vance the na­tion­al mu­si­cal in­stru­ment. As the or­gan­i­sa­tion cel­e­brates its 55th an­niver­sary in 2026, it is re­flect­ing on a lega­cy built on re­silience, cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty and the work of those who laid the foun­da­tions for gen­er­a­tions to come.

The use of the “home name” has been a nor­mal part of every­day life for Trin­bag­o­ni­ans for decades. Most of us are prob­a­bly more close­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with our home names, of­ten link­ing our “gov­ern­ment name” to se­ri­ous sit­u­a­tions or “get­ting in trou­ble”. But did you know that the home name was steeped in West African prac­tice and be­lief? Our African an­ces­tors be­lieved that a per­son’s true name holds deep spir­i­tu­al pow­er and con­nects di­rect­ly to their soul, so a “fake iden­ti­ty” was a way to pro­tect chil­dren from the evil eye, neg­a­tiv­i­ty, jumbies and for­est spir­its.

It was sup­posed to be rou­tine. A Pap smear, a sim­ple health screen­ing that Kim­ber­ly Moone­sar had no rea­son to be­lieve would change the course of her life.

And the an­gel of the Lord ap­peared un­to him, and said, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of val­our.  And Gideon said un­to him, Oh my Lord, if the Lord be with us, why then is all this be­fall­en us? And where are all his mir­a­cles which our fa­thers told us of, say­ing, Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt? But now the Lord has for­sak­en us and de­liv­ered us in­to the hands of the Mid­i­an­ites.  And the Lord looked up­on him and said, ‘Go in this thy might, and thou shalt save Is­rael from the hand of the Mid­i­an­ites: have not I sent thee?’  And he said un­to him, Oh my Lord, where­with shall I save Is­rael? Be­hold, my fam­i­ly is poor in Man­asseh, and I am the least in my fa­ther’s house.” (Judges 6:12 to 15).

For many par­ents, bed­time read­ing is a qui­et rou­tine de­signed to lull chil­dren to sleep. For lo­cal au­thor Al­isa Gomez, how­ev­er, it be­came the un­ex­pect­ed launch­pad for a self-pub­lish­ing jour­ney aimed at re­shap­ing lo­cal chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture.