Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Tourists from In­dia, Venezuela and the Unit­ed States were among hun­dreds who made the pil­grim­age to La Div­ina Pas­to­ra Church yes­ter­day for the an­nu­al Si­pa­ree Ki Mai Fes­ti­val. Of­fi­cials said it was one of the largest and most dis­ci­plined turnouts in re­cent years.

Pil­grims lined up for hours in the church­yard to make of­fer­ings of rice, oil, flow­ers, mon­ey and can­dles to the stat­ue of La Div­ina Pas­to­ra. Hin­dus pay homage to her as the rein­car­na­tion of Moth­er Dur­ga, while Chris­tians wor­ship her as a man­i­fes­ta­tion of Mary, the moth­er of Je­sus Christ.

In­di­an na­tion­al Anan­thara­man, who is cur­rent­ly lec­tur­ing in me­chan­i­cal en­gi­neer­ing at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), took his en­tire fam­i­ly to the fes­ti­val. Al­though the cel­e­bra­tion is known on­ly to Trinidad and To­ba­go, Anan­thara­man said there is a sim­i­lar event which takes place an­nu­al­ly in south­ern In­dia.

His wife, Jay­alak­sh­mi Anan­thara­man, said in In­dia it is al­so cus­tom­ary for Hin­dus to pray in a Ro­man Catholic church. Sev­er­al per­sons at­tend­ed yes­ter­day's event to pray at the stat­ue for heal­ing and oth­er mir­a­cles. Among them was Nali­ni Sama­roo who was in­volved in an ac­ci­dent six weeks ago. She hob­bled in­to the church on crutch­es. Sama­roo, who said she was in a lot of pain, is ex­pect­ed to un­der­go surgery short­ly.

"I am hop­ing for a mir­a­cle and that is why I came here," she said. Can­cer pa­tient Michael Par­mash­war, of Tacarigua, said he has faith that he will be cured. "I have the can­cer in my ab­domen and I al­ready had surgery. I come here every year to of­fer flow­ers and oil," he said.

Ravi Roop­nar­ine brought his three chil­dren-Bran­don, 12, Shiv­ani, eight, and Brent, six-to pray. "We are hap­py. I came here to ask for health strength and peace in my fam­i­ly," Roop­nar­ine said. Sev­er­al per­sons took chil­dren for hair­cuts at the back of the church. Sookoo Bridge­mo­han, who has been cut­ting hair at the church dur­ing the fes­ti­val for more than 40 years, said the tra­di­tion has been passed down in his fam­i­ly over five gen­er­a­tions.

His son, Ezekiel, ex­plained: "We are proud of this tra­di­tion. The hair that is cut from the child is of­fered to the holy moth­er (stat­ue) and peo­ple ask her to pro­tect the child." Scores of needy peo­ple al­so gath­ered out­side the church seek­ing alms.