The crack­le of fire­wood and the ris­ing ca­dence of chow­tal songs filled the Pierre Road Recre­ation Ground in Fe­lic­i­ty on Mon­day evening as the Pierre Road Ra­mayan and Chow­tal Group (PRRCG) host­ed its an­nu­al Ho­li­ka Da­han cel­e­bra­tion.

Re­turn of the Red In­di­ans, pre­sent­ed by Stealth Tech Lim­it­ed Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee, made a com­plete sweep of all ma­jor awards in the re­cent Cou­va Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee’s Pa­rade of the Bands com­pe­ti­tion.

When 20-time Gram­my Award-win­ning gospel icon Kirk Franklin steps on­to the stage at Queen’s Park Oval on March 21, it will sig­nal far more than the start of a con­cert. It will mark a bold na­tion­al state­ment: no soul is be­yond re­demp­tion, no life be­yond restora­tion, and no com­mu­ni­ty be­yond trans­for­ma­tion.

The fourth edi­tion of the To­ba­go Jazz and Mu­sic Week­end promis­es to have pa­trons swing­ing in more ways than one.

Tem­ple fairs are a key part of Chi­nese New Year cel­e­bra­tions, which this year marks the Year of the Horse.

One look at Vanes­sa Dieudonne’s Tik­Tok page and you’d swear she has been vis­it­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go for years. The ma­jor­i­ty of her con­tent is ded­i­cat­ed to our twin is­lands, cap­tur­ing every­thing from Mara­cas Beach and Port-of-Spain to the folk­lore of Cru­soe’s Cave and the night­time rhythm of Buc­coo.

For two hours every day, 80-year-old Miguel Marchan bends wire, ham­mers met­al and shapes elab­o­rate cos­tumes.

Dur­ing this time of fast­ing, specif­i­cal­ly Ra­madan and Lent, it is a time of prayer, re­flec­tion and close­ness with God. When ob­serv­ing this time of fast­ing, main­tain­ing health is es­sen­tial, es­pe­cial­ly for women. To en­sure the nu­tri­tion­al and hor­mon­al needs are met across all stages of life, the key theme is bal­ance.

An­gli­can Rev­erend Danielle Pon­ti­f­let’s life has al­ways been cen­tred around the church. But it took some time be­fore she un­der­stood and ac­cept­ed her call­ing—ser­vice to God as an or­dained min­is­ter, with a spe­cial em­pha­sis on so­ci­ety’s foun­da­tion.

Twelve years ago, when she opened the doors of Scrib­bles and Quills In­de­pen­dent Book­store, there were qui­et ques­tions about whether peo­ple still read and whether an in­de­pen­dent book­store could sur­vive in a dig­i­tal age. Radeyah Ali showed up any­way. What be­gan in 2014 as a deeply per­son­al refuge has since grown in­to a lit­er­ary home for read­ers across Trinidad and To­ba­go - a space built on in­ten­tion, rep­re­sen­ta­tion and com­mu­ni­ty care.

Es­tab­lished in 1996 in the UK, af­ter the 1991 Book­er Prize short­list fea­tured no women, the Women’s Prize for Fic­tion was cre­at­ed to recog­nise the best nov­el writ­ten in Eng­lish by a woman and pub­lished in Britain each year. Orig­i­nal­ly launched as the Or­ange Prize, it has be­come one of the most sig­nif­i­cant in­ter­na­tion­al lit­er­ary awards, bring­ing sus­tained at­ten­tion to women writ­ers across bor­ders and back­grounds — a mis­sion re­flect­ed in this se­lec­tion of eight short­list­ed women of colour.

Our friends at Fam­i­lies in Ac­tion con­tin­ue their fo­cus on un­der­stand­ing work­place stress. In Part I, they told us why, across Trinidad and To­ba­go, work­ers in al­most all sec­tors felt un­der pres­sure and how the line be­tween “at work” and “off du­ty” has dis­ap­peared, cre­at­ing strain and stress.