It is av­o­ca­do sea­son in Trinidad. Some say “zabo­ca” and my moth­er calls it “God’s but­ter.” I al­ways thought her de­scrip­tion was per­fect. Slice open a good one and there is that ex­tra­or­di­nary yel­low-green flesh that is creamy enough to spread on bread.

For peo­ple with sick­le cell dis­ease, life is of­ten de­fined by a re­lent­less cy­cle of pain crises, hos­pi­tal ad­mis­sions and ma­jor or­gan com­pli­ca­tions.

Did you know that on Au­gust 26, 1962, the Trinidad Guardian News­pa­pers used 4,420 miles (7,113 kilo­me­tres) of newsprint to print 110,000 copies of a 120-page In­de­pen­dence Sup­ple­ment, which was dis­trib­uted with the Sun­day Guardian at no ex­tra cost to read­ers?

When we re­flect on the dawn of our in­de­pen­dence, we of­ten pic­ture the grand cel­e­bra­tions, the low­ered Union Jack, and the proud hoist­ing of our red, white and black flag on Au­gust 31, 1962. Yet, true in­de­pen­dence re­quired more than sym­bol­ism - it de­mand­ed the eco­nom­ic foun­da­tion to sus­tain a new­ly sov­er­eign na­tion.

In the late 1930s, the west­ern gate­way in­to Port-of-Spain was a treach­er­ous ex­panse of tidal man­grove swamp and marsh­land.

For As­sis­tant Chief Ex­am­in­er Robin Ram­lal, math­e­mat­ics has nev­er been about mem­o­ris­ing for­mu­las or sur­viv­ing ex­am­i­na­tions.

More than a cen­tu­ry ago, in the streets of Port-of-Spain, peo­ple seek­ing re­lief from ill­ness could find them­selves mov­ing be­tween worlds.

Cur­rent prob­lems fac­ing Caribbean uni­ty are part of a tur­bu­lent past in which dreams of re­gion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty nev­er ma­te­ri­alised. At­tempts at uni­ty were made in the 1950s to cre­ate an en­ti­ty- Fed­er­a­tion.

Even as they faced winds “strong like a ty­phoon,” hun­gry sharks cir­cling their ship, an oil leak and a mal­func­tion­ing com­pass, so­ca singer Snakey and pro­duc­er Alex “SandX­i­la” Aird com­mand­ed the rag­ing seas all the way to the 2026 Grena­da Pow­er So­ca Monarch fi­nal, where they an­chored down on the ti­tle.

Ex­change Vil­lage Mud Mandir, al­so known as the Se­wala Mandir in Cou­va and ded­i­cat­ed to Lord Shi­va, is con­sid­ered one of the longest-oc­cu­pied tem­ples in the coun­try.

By day, Kel­lian Suepaul teach­es physics at Man­zanil­la Sec­ondary School. By night and on week­ends, she trans­forms in­to Kelly­Sue, a ver­sa­tile singer and band­leader cap­ti­vat­ing au­di­ences with per­for­mances span­ning rock, pop, reg­gae, R&B, so­ca and Bol­ly­wood mu­sic.

In April, Dr Sher­rise Sandy, MBBS (UWI), FR­C­Path (UK), sat one of med­i­cine’s most de­mand­ing pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­i­na­tions, be­com­ing the first can­di­date from Trinidad and To­ba­go to com­plete the Fel­low­ship of the Roy­al Col­lege of Pathol­o­gists, the FR­C­Path, as an ex­ter­nal can­di­date, with the en­tire­ty of her train­ing com­plet­ed at Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.