High­er than the Mt Ever­est base camp, Trinida­di­an Shar­lene Han­iff be­came the first Trinida­di­an woman and al­so the first fe­male Tri­ni mo­tor­cy­clist to sum­mit one of the world’s high­est mo­torable roads, Um­ling La in In­dia. Lo­cat­ed with­in the Hi­malayan Moun­tains, it ris­es 19,024 ft (5,798 m) above sea lev­el. The Ever­est base camp sits at an al­ti­tude of 17,598 feet (5,364 me­ters) in Nepal.

There are few things more drain­ing than hav­ing to deal reg­u­lar­ly with some­one who shouts at you, speaks ag­gres­sive­ly, or re­sponds to you with con­stant “ste­ups­ing,” dis­mis­sive sounds, eye-rolling or oth­er ges­tures of con­tempt.

When God placed the tongue with­in a com­pound guard­ed by 32 sharp teeth, it was not be­cause of out­side threats, but the threat from with­in. For such a small thing, the tongue’s pow­er and in­flu­ence seem un­nat­u­ral­ly out of pro­por­tion.

For An­tho­ny “Tony Xan­da” Alexan­der, a good so­ca parang per­fect­ly blends the au­then­tic el­e­ments of tra­di­tion­al parang mu­sic with that of mod­ern so­ca. With the count­down al­ready on to Christ­mas Day and as T&T ob­served Parang His­to­ry Month last month in Sep­tem­ber, he joined the cel­e­bra­tions with his new song, Duck She.

For Tsian John, a love for scent­ed can­dles first turned in­to a hob­by, but lat­er blos­somed in­to a busi­ness ven­ture. Now, five years lat­er, she con­tin­ues to con­coct and ex­per­i­ment with fra­grances in The Scent­ed Lab.

With our brief stay in Guyana now be­hind us, on Au­gust 12 we flew back to Man­aus from Boa Vista on Azul Air­lines. No 12-hour bus ride this time. Twelve days had gone by since we left Trinidad, and we were due to leave Man­aus for Pana­ma at 3.30 am on Au­gust 13. By 5 pm on Au­gust 12, we were back at our base, Casa Dos Frades, where we had just about enough time to or­gan­ise our pack­ing and to step out op­po­site the ho­tel in­to the bright and live­ly San Se­bas­t­ian Park.

Long be­fore she knew the lan­guage of ma­rine bi­ol­o­gy, long be­fore deep-sea ex­pe­di­tions and re­search ves­sels, it was sim­ply a part of her child­hood. Grow­ing up in Trinidad and To­ba­go, Amon re­mem­bers feel­ing like the ocean was her “play­mate” as she spent much of her time at the beach and in the wa­ter, ex­plor­ing a nat­ur­al world that seemed to of­fer an end­less sup­ply of things to dis­cov­er. Be­fore ca­ble tele­vi­sion and the in­ter­net could trans­form how chil­dren en­coun­tered the wider world, for Amon, na­ture it­self was her en­ter­tain­ment.

As Trinidad and To­ba­go cel­e­brates Ca­lyp­so His­to­ry Month, there is no bet­ter way to be­gin the ob­ser­vance than by pay­ing trib­ute to the “Ca­lyp­so King of the World” Slinger Fran­cis­co - the Mighty Spar­row - who was large­ly re­gard­ed as giv­ing the art­form in­ter­na­tion­al ap­peal and tak­ing it fur­ther on the glob­al stage.

Have you ever tak­en a trip to an­oth­er coun­try and learned all about its his­to­ry, on­ly to re­alise you don’t know the sto­ries be­hind your own back­yard?

What be­gan as a dream on a re­hearsal room floor in Trinidad and To­ba­go be­came an in­ter­na­tion­al jour­ney that car­ried the voic­es of young per­form­ers, ed­u­ca­tors and the­atre prac­ti­tion­ers across the At­lantic and on­to sig­nif­i­cant stages for Shake­speare and the­atre.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Hai­ley Pysadee was crowned Miss In­dia World­wide at the in­ter­na­tion­al pageant held in Trinidad last night, bring­ing the ti­tle home as con­tes­tants from around the world gath­ered for the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed com­pe­ti­tion.

When Amer­i­can ac­tress and for­mer Miss USA Crys­tle Stew­art stepped in front of the cam­era on Tor­to­la, the set­ting was un­mis­tak­ably Caribbean—blue wa­ters, a lux­u­ry re­sort and a de­sign­er whose work draws heav­i­ly from the re­gion.