To res­i­dents of tenth Street, Techi­er Vil­lage, Point Fortin, Myr­tle Mau­rice-Bai­ley, known wide­ly as Ma Bai­ley, will al­ways be one of the pil­lars of their com­mu­ni­ty.

The year 2013 saw a dras­tic change for me. It was around Au­gust or Sep­tem­ber that I was giv­en the dev­as­tat­ing news that I had cer­vi­cal can­cer. Need­less to say, I felt numb for some mo­ments un­til the enor­mi­ty of my sit­u­a­tion be­gan to sink in, and a roller­coast­er of emo­tions kicked in, the fore­most be­ing fear and anx­i­ety and, of course, hav­ing to break this heartwrench­ing news to my fam­i­ly. But it had to be done, nonethe­less.

Hear­ing those words was ter­ri­fy­ing. It felt as if my en­tire world had col­lapsed since I had no un­der­stand­ing of can­cer or its treat­ments. My ini­tial re­ac­tion was the fear of dy­ing. How­ev­er, af­ter un­der­go­ing ad­di­tion­al tests and con­sult­ing with my doc­tors, I dis­cov­ered that it was Stage 2B and that there were treat­ment op­tions avail­able, in­clud­ing chemother­a­py and ra­di­a­tion.

“I found it very full of death and cold.” Wendy Doniger’s re­ac­tion to the Taj Ma­hal ap­pears in An Amer­i­can Girl in In­dia: Let­ters and Rec­ol­lec­tions, 1963–64. The ex­tract pub­lished here is tak­en from that book.

De­spite hav­ing to con­duct an al­most com­plete over­haul of their lay­out and lo­gis­tics in the lead-up to PRES­tige Fete 2026, the event man­age­ment team of the Alum­ni of Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege San Fer­nan­do says they are on track to ex­ceed past ex­pec­ta­tions with this year’s all-in­clu­sive event.

One of Ch­agua­nas’ most pop­u­lar J’Ou­vert bands, Jou­vert Junkiez, is promis­ing a pow­er­ful re­turn to the roots of Car­ni­val with its 2026 por­tray­al, Ra­ma­jay… Time to Break Away.

Prose fic­tion writer and hand­i­craft artiste, Vashti Bowlah, cred­its her rur­al up­bring­ing and her par­ents for her be­com­ing a pub­lished au­thor and en­tre­pre­neur.

Fete lovers turned out in their num­bers for Start It Part 3, host­ed by Funky Fitz En­ter­tain­ment on De­cem­ber 28 at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do.

Parang en­thu­si­asts will gath­er to cel­e­brate the Feasts of the Epiphany and the Bap­tism of the Lord when Par­ran­deros meet at St Michael’s Ro­man Catholic Church, Mara­cas, St Joseph, to­day.

When the cur­tain ris­es at 7 pm to­mor­row at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do, for Lega­cy—the Na­tion­al Panora­ma Small Band Fi­nals—16 steel or­ches­tras will take the stage, ready for in­tense ad­ju­di­ca­tion in one of the fes­ti­val’s most keen­ly con­test­ed cat­e­gories.

Re­search sug­gests that dur­ing pe­ri­ods of height­ened stress, peo­ple are more in­clined to so­cialise, cel­e­brate and seek re­lease through recre­ation. Car­ni­val 2026 may well be shap­ing up as a liv­ing ex­am­ple of this “ten­sion-re­duc­tion” hy­poth­e­sis.

Grena­di­an So­ca Monarch Mud­dy (Alex Cuffie) de­liv­ered an un­ex­pect­ed jolt of Jab en­er­gy at Si­ete Events’ French Toast Break­fast Cool­er Par­ty last Sun­day morn­ing, giv­ing pa­trons a tan­ta­lis­ing pre­view of what he is bring­ing to Trinidad Car­ni­val 2026.