Atopic or al­ler­gic dis­eases (atopy is just an­oth­er word for al­ler­gy) have been in­creas­ing all over the world for the last 30 years. It is not un­ex­pect­ed then that al­ler­gic rash­es, or atopic der­mati­tis (AD), has al­so been in­creas­ing.

For many peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go, con­ver­sa­tions about bow­el habits re­main deeply un­com­fort­able. Blood in the stool is of­ten dis­missed as haem­or­rhoids. Per­sis­tent ab­dom­i­nal dis­com­fort is brushed aside as some­thing that was eat­en. Screen­ing is fre­quent­ly de­layed be­cause of fear, em­bar­rass­ment or the be­lief that col­orec­tal can­cer is a dis­ease that af­fects on­ly old­er peo­ple.

There is one im­age from child­hood that has nev­er left me. Af­ter the Com­mon En­trance re­sults were an­nounced, the school play­ground be­came a fes­ti­val of joy. Chil­dren ran across the yard call­ing out the names of their new schools. Par­ents em­braced one an­oth­er. Teach­ers smiled with qui­et sat­is­fac­tion. Yet, away from the noise, three girls sat to­geth­er on the con­crete steps be­side the taps. Their heads were bowed. No tears. No words. On­ly si­lence. It was whis­pered that they had failed. I have for­got­ten many ex­am­i­na­tion scores over the years, but I have nev­er for­got­ten those three chil­dren sit­ting alone while every­one else cel­e­brat­ed. It was the first time I un­der­stood that dis­ap­point­ment can be loneli­est when sur­round­ed by oth­er peo­ple’s hap­pi­ness.

What be­gan in the 19th cen­tu­ry as a solemn Shi’a Mus­lim mourn­ing pe­ri­od has evolved over the decades in­to one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s most strik­ing sym­bols of mul­ti-eth­nic sol­i­dar­i­ty, cul­tur­al cre­oli­sa­tion, and his­tor­i­cal re­silience.

For six years, Lawrence Ar­joon has watched young peo­ple walk through the doors of the He­roes Foun­da­tion car­ry­ing bur­dens many adults would strug­gle to bear.

As the aca­d­e­m­ic year comes to a close this week and stu­dents across the coun­try trade their class­rooms for the free­dom of the Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion, we mark the oc­ca­sion with a spe­cial jour­ney back to the school­yards of 1987 through 1990, to kick off a new From Our Archives page with our WE Her­itage Fea­tures every Mon­day.

Every day, thou­sands of Trin­bag­o­ni­ans rush through the streets of Port-of-Spain. For some, it’s a dai­ly hus­tle for work. For oth­ers, it’s sim­ply home. And while lo­cals might walk past these streets with­out a sec­ond thought, vis­i­tors are of­ten left in awe of the grand ar­chi­tec­ture of many his­toric sites.

As Read Caribbean Month comes to a close, a re­mark­able lega­cy is just be­gin­ning. What start­ed as a stan­dard group pre­sen­ta­tion for a group of lo­cal stu­dents has blos­somed in­to an in­spir­ing jour­ney to be­come pub­lished au­thors.

On June 10, Sha­ka His­lop and his wife, De­sha, cel­e­brat­ed 31 years of mar­riage. They marked the mile­stone oc­ca­sion by tak­ing pic­tures in their orig­i­nal wed­ding at­tire from three decades ago, right in their back­yard. “I can’t tell you how hard we laughed,” Sha­ka said. Those pho­tos meant even more for the leg­endary for­mer na­tion­al World Cup goal­keep­er af­ter what he’d been through. Just two years ear­li­er, a prostate can­cer di­ag­no­sis had com­plete­ly blind­sided him and his en­tire fam­i­ly.

Had his heart not stopped in Lon­don at 40, the younger Naipaul might have stood be­side VS Naipaul as one of the great West In­di­an writ­ers of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry.

When was the last time you paid at­ten­tion to your cat’s uri­na­tion habits? Fe­line Low­er Uri­nary Tract Dis­ease (of­ten termed FLUTD) is an um­brel­la term used to de­scribe a group of prob­lems as­so­ci­at­ed with in­flam­ma­tion and ir­ri­ta­tion of the low­er uri­nary tract in cats. Clin­i­cal signs an own­er might no­tice with their cat ex­pe­ri­enc­ing FLUTD of­ten in­clude strain­ing to uri­nate, in­creased fre­quen­cy of uri­na­tion in small amounts, blood-tinged urine, or even uri­nat­ing in un­usu­al places out­side the lit­ter box.

Lit­tle Kairo Kin­sale, age one-and-a half, flash­es a big smile as he makes his way to the Cy­cling Grand Prix, at Na­tion­al Cy­cling Cen­tre, Cou­va.