RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Ri­ta Smyke, the old­est sur­viv­ing de­scen­dant of the Merikens joy­ous­ly cel­e­brat­ed her re­mark­able one hun­dred and tenth birth­day with fam­i­ly on Fri­day.

Renowned for her warmth and de­light­ful sense of hu­mour, Smyke graced the fes­tiv­i­ties with her pres­ence, sur­round­ed by cher­ished fam­i­ly and friends. 

Bask­ing in the love and joy of the day, Smyke shared her heart­felt birth­day wish­es with those clos­est to her.

“I want a bet­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go,” she de­clared as her daugh­ters Cheryl Smyke, Jacque­line Cok­er and June Camp­bell kissed her.

She added: “God has been good to me and I want to praise him for mak­ing me reach to this age,” she said.

Adding to the ju­bi­la­tion, the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment’s De­part­ment of Ag­ing ho­n­oured Smyke with a vis­it, ac­knowl­edg­ing her ex­cep­tion­al longevi­ty and de­clar­ing her among the most ven­er­a­ble cen­te­nar­i­ans in T&T.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, nephew Eden Charles said Smyke al­ways en­joyed a won­der­ful re­la­tion­ship with God. As a staunch Sev­enth-Day Ad­ven­tist, Charles said Smyke was al­ways a source of en­cour­age­ment.

“When I was small my fa­ther the late Den­nis Charles used to take us down to Lothains Road Princes Town and at that time her home was like the vil­lage cin­e­ma, every­body from the street would go to look at black and white tele­vi­sion,” he re­called. Charles said Smyke in­cul­cat­ed in­to them the val­ues of moral­i­ty, hon­esty and be­lief in God.

“I re­mem­ber she was the first per­son who owned a busi­ness. She had a par­lour and when I did well in test, she would give me Par­adise plums and oth­er sweets,” he added.

Charles said Smyke was the old­est Sev­enth-Day Ad­ven­tist in the Caribbean and the old­est sur­viv­ing de­scen­dent of the Merikins- the for­mer African slaves who fought for the British against the US in the War of 1812.

“We are blessed to know she is still around and we hope the Min­istry of Ag­ing would reach out to the cen­te­nar­i­ans not on­ly on the oc­ca­sion of her birth­day but would see that T&T is con­tribut­ing to­wards the UN Sus­tain­able goals in terms of how we are treat­ing our el­der­ly,” he said.

Smyke’s daugh­ter June Camp­belle said she has no spe­cial di­et but en­joys a lit­tle of every­thing.

“What­ev­er I cook, she will eat. She doesn’t eat much meat any­more and she loves her pro­vi­sions and salt fish. Some­times we buy chick­en and make a chick­en sal­ad. On Christ­mas Day she had co­coa,” Camp­belle said.

Care­tak­er Janelle Tay­lor Gask­it said Smyke en­joys singing gospel songs. 

“She will sit up, lis­ten to songs and talk and laugh. She loves to talk and laugh,” Gask­it said.

Smyke has five chil­dren, one of whom is de­ceased. She al­so has 23 grand­chil­dren, 13 great-grand­chil­dren and six great-grand­chil­dren.