RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Kaleem Mo­hammed loves hors­es, while his wife, Sak­e­na Ali, loves art.

When Ali host­ed her first sip-and-paint event in 2022, the cou­ple be­gan con­sid­er­ing how they could com­bine their two in­ter­ests.

That same year, Coun­trylifeTT was born. What be­gan with a rent­ed tent and a few ta­bles and chairs has grown in­to a coun­try­side at­trac­tion in Bar­rack­pore, where fam­i­lies can spend a day rid­ing hors­es, paint­ing, try­ing their hand at archery or sim­ply en­joy­ing the out­doors.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Mo­hammed, 32, said the idea came from a de­sire to cre­ate some­thing dif­fer­ent in south Trinidad, where their two chil­dren, aged four and eight, could en­joy whole­some ac­tiv­i­ties.

Re­call­ing their jour­ney, Mo­hammed said: “My wife did her first sip and paint, and then one day she said, ‘Why don’t we com­bine both the things we love to­geth­er?’ So we took the leap of faith, and that’s the step­ping stone for Coun­trylife.”

He said that when they start­ed in 2022, there was lit­tle to sug­gest that the prop­er­ty would even­tu­al­ly be­come an at­trac­tion for in­ter­na­tion­al vis­i­tors.

Mo­hammed’s fa­ther, Hashim Mo­hammed, had plant­ed co­conut trees on the land, and the fam­i­ly helped main­tain them.

The cou­ple rent­ed a tent, chairs and ta­bles and set up their sip-and-paint ses­sions be­neath it.

Mo­hammed said peo­ple trav­elled from dif­fer­ent parts of Trinidad to ex­pe­ri­ence coun­try life.

At the time, sip-and-paint events were pop­u­lar, and Coun­trylifeTT of­fered some­thing unique: paint­ing in a rur­al set­ting, with hors­es near­by and good food.

Mo­hammed said they even­tu­al­ly found them­selves host­ing two groups on Sat­ur­days and two on Sun­days, with about ten peo­ple in each group.

Since then, the busi­ness has ex­pand­ed, at­tract­ing young cou­ples, Caribbean neigh­bours and tourists from Guyana, the Unit­ed States, Cana­da, Eng­land and In­dia.

“There are pack­ages for cou­ples, fam­i­lies and groups, as well as horse­back rid­ing, archery and events,” he said.

For cou­ples, Mo­hammed said, the set­ting is made more in­ti­mate with flow­ers and chilled wine buck­ets.

The cou­ple have even host­ed a small wed­ding.

The fam­i­ly ar­ti­san mar­ket al­so re­mains im­por­tant to them be­cause it pro­motes cul­ture. A har­vest-themed event was sched­uled for Oc­to­ber 3, with free ad­mis­sion to the pub­lic.

Mo­hammed said they had recog­nised a short­age of places in south Trinidad where fam­i­lies could spend time to­geth­er with­out al­co­hol be­ing at the cen­tre of the ex­pe­ri­ence.

“We cre­ate this area where fam­i­lies could come, con­nect, slow down,” he said.

There is no Wi-Fi at Coun­trylifeTT. Vis­i­tors can use their phones if they wish, but Mo­hammed said the idea is to en­cour­age peo­ple to put them down and spend time with one an­oth­er.

For fam­i­lies watch­ing their bud­gets, Mo­hammed said, there is a pack­age that al­lows par­ents to bring their own food and snacks while spend­ing time with the hors­es.

He said a horse­back trail ride was rea­son­ably priced, while a pri­vate sip-and-paint ses­sion in­clud­ed ma­te­ri­als and guid­ance from Ali.

Mo­hammed said it was grat­i­fy­ing to see vis­i­tors leave hap­py. He re­called one par­tic­u­lar­ly mem­o­rable vis­it by a Ja­maican man who had mi­grat­ed to the Unit­ed States and came to Coun­trylifeTT with his wife and daugh­ter.

“Af­ter the ride, my fa­ther in­vit­ed the cou­ple to join our fam­i­ly, and we cooked cur­ried duck. It was re­al­ly fun, and he was able to show his daugh­ter what his Caribbean life had been like be­fore he mi­grat­ed,” Mo­hammed said.

Mean­while, Ali said run­ning Coun­trylifeTT while rais­ing a fam­i­ly and man­ag­ing oth­er re­spon­si­bil­i­ties had not been easy.

How­ev­er, she said there was sat­is­fac­tion in build­ing some­thing that she and her fam­i­ly en­joyed.

Ali be­lieves part­ner­ships with the Min­istry of Tourism could help ex­pose the busi­ness to more vis­i­tors.

While gov­ern­ment ini­tia­tives ex­ist, she said, many young busi­ness own­ers might not know what as­sis­tance was avail­able.

She al­so said vis­its to Coun­trylifeTT could help young peo­ple de­vel­op an ap­pre­ci­a­tion for an­i­mals. Her hus­band, she ex­plained, was well trained in han­dling hors­es and had com­plet­ed on­line cours­es, in­clud­ing pro­grammes as­so­ci­at­ed with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Eques­tri­an As­so­ci­a­tion (TTEA).

He lat­er worked with an ex­pe­ri­enced rid­er and sought ad­di­tion­al train­ing to im­prove his rid­ing skills.

The busi­ness now pro­vides sad­dles, hel­mets and oth­er equip­ment for vis­i­tors.

Ali said that, be­yond con­tribut­ing to fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty life, she was grate­ful that cou­ples could strength­en their bonds by choos­ing to spend time at Coun­trylifeTT.

For those vis­it­ing at week­ends, Ali said, there was plen­ty to do or, if they pre­ferred, they could do noth­ing at all.

“Sit un­der a tree. Watch the hors­es and cat­tle. En­joy the breeze and ex­pe­ri­ence good vibes. That is what Coun­trylifeTT is all about,” she added.