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.

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.

From mid­night “zoomies” to bath­room body­guards, our pets have plen­ty of quirks that leave us won­der­ing: why on earth do they do that? If you’ve ever watched your dog sud­den­ly sprint around the house at full speed or won­dered why your cat in­sists on squeez­ing in­to a box that is clear­ly too small, you’re not alone. In this ar­ti­cle, I’ll try my best to ex­plain why many of these be­hav­iours seem com­plete­ly ridicu­lous to us, even though there is of­ten a per­fect­ly rea­son­able ex­pla­na­tion be­hind them.

We take a look at some of the Mighty Spar­row’s most mem­o­rable mo­ments caught on cam­era over the years.

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?

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.

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.

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.

When Sun­der­lal Vy­lan Son­ny was born, his moth­er im­me­di­ate­ly no­ticed there were some things about her new­born son that were dif­fer­ent. Ac­cord­ing to Jual­la, he was “a big ba­by, al­most ten pounds, with twist­ed fin­gers and feet and stiff limbs.” It was 1999, and at that time, there was no an­swer to what made him dif­fer­ent, so she ac­cept­ed the re­sponse when she took him to the clin­ic and was told that every­thing was fine. At 18 months old, how­ev­er, Jual­la again no­ticed that some­thing was wrong. Her son was still not at­tempt­ing to turn over or make sounds, which prompt­ed her to go to a clin­ic again for the doc­tors to have a clos­er look. Son­ny was even­tu­al­ly di­ag­nosed with cere­bral pal­sy (CP), with the doc­tors in­di­cat­ing that he had suf­fered a lack of oxy­gen to his brain dur­ing de­liv­ery.

Call to book a nail ap­point­ment with Tam­my Arneaud, and you might just hear her hus­band, De Ron, an­swer the phone. In fact, this was the case when We Life and Cul­ture reached out to her for this in­ter­view.

The awards cer­e­mo­ny, held on Sun­day, Sep­tem­ber 20, at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) in Port-of-Spain, cel­e­brat­ed the rich­ness and di­ver­si­ty of Caribbean mu­sic and cul­ture. Be­yond the per­for­mances and ho­n­ours, the red car­pet be­came a vi­su­al cel­e­bra­tion of fash­ion, glam­our and cre­ativ­i­ty.