When thou­sands of Caribbean peo­ple and their de­scen­dants take to the streets of Brook­lyn, New York, on Labour Day, Sep­tem­ber 7, the sounds of Trinidad and To­ba­go and Ja­maica will share the spot­light.

When you are recog­nised as one of the greats who have pro­duced abun­dant­ly for the cul­tur­al land­scape of Trinidad and To­ba­go, be­ing no­ticed speaks vol­umes.

Machel Mon­tano has per­formed be­fore mas­sive crowds around the world, col­lect­ed tro­phies and ti­tles across four decades and car­ried so­ca on­to some of mu­sic’s biggest stages. But walk­ing through a Brook­lyn ex­hi­bi­tion last week filled with the phys­i­cal ev­i­dence of that jour­ney ap­par­ent­ly man­aged to sur­prise even the Road March record hold­er.

Mervyn Critchlow was ini­ti­at­ed in­to a ca­reer in news re­port­ing in the 1960s and 1970s, a pe­ri­od of in­tense in­dus­tri­al and con­tentious trade union ac­tiv­i­ty, po­lit­i­cal ac­tivism and an­gry calls for “Black Pow­er”.

The sto­ries of Trinidad and To­ba­go have been told in many ways, most of­ten with one goal in mind—to pre­serve the his­to­ry and tra­di­tions that make the twin-is­land na­tion what it is.

Andy Po­li­ah, cred­it­ed with bring­ing his own Mex­i­can-Tri­ni-flavoured cui­sine to San Fer­nan­do, says pas­sion and de­ter­mi­na­tion are key in­gre­di­ents for young en­tre­pre­neurs seek­ing suc­cess, but he warns they should nev­er be afraid of fail­ure.

The aro­ma of wood smoke drifts along the SS Erin Road at Dun­can Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do, draw­ing the at­ten­tion of mo­torists and passers-by.

When you hear “Big Man Ting” (BMT) in col­lo­qui­al lan­guage, it means se­ri­ous busi­ness that on­ly an adult can han­dle.

From a very young age, Kait­lyn Sa­ha­too was taught to reach for the stars. Her moth­er, Bet­sy De­onar­ine-Sa­ha­too, re­called a promise she made years ago.

The his­toric ar­chae­o­log­i­cal site at Ban­wari Trace, Pe­nal, be­came the cen­tre of cel­e­bra­tions of two dis­tant chap­ters of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s his­to­ry ear­li­er this month.

Most fevers in chil­dren are caused by an in­fec­tion and no one likes to think that their child has some sort of in­fec­tion. Fever­ish chil­dren al­so be­have dif­fer­ent­ly. They be­come qui­et. They stop eat­ing. They com­plain about headaches or sore throats or stom­ach aches and so on.

Hand grip strength. Bal­ance tests. Stand­ing up from a seat­ed po­si­tion on the floor. These phys­i­cal chal­lenges are of­ten tout­ed as mea­sure­ments of healthy age­ing and even pre­dic­tors of longevi­ty.