Camille McEach­nie

When the 32nd sea­son of Amer­i­can re­al­i­ty tele­vi­sion show Amaz­ing Race is aired on CBS be­fore the end of the year, Trinida­di­ans will have to pay clos­er at­ten­tion.

This is be­cause it will fea­ture To­ba­go’s nat­ur­al beau­ty, unique cul­ture and warm, friend­ly peo­ple in its re­pro­duc­tion, thanks to Caswtara’s La­Toya Williams, who op­er­at­ed as the show’s lo­ca­tions man­ag­er when it shot seg­ments here in T&T.

Williams, a sea­soned hand at all things in­volv­ing video pro­duc­tion, dis­plays hu­mil­i­ty and ex­cite­ment when she talks about work­ing on the show.

Of course, her air­tight non-dis­clo­sure con­tract pre­vents her from giv­ing much-need­ed juicy de­tails.

Nonethe­less, she was able to say the ex­pe­ri­ence hum­bled her.

“At first I was ner­vous be­cause of the size of the pro­duc­tion. How­ev­er, I love chal­lenges. It was a hum­bling, eye-open­ing ex­pe­ri­ence that will teach you time and com­mit­ment are two main things with­in the film in­dus­try.”

She said she was eter­nal­ly grate­ful to peo­ple like Lor­raine O’Con­nor, Princess Donelan and Leslie Ann Can­ton for trust­ing her to do the job.

She al­so feels proud that To­ba­go, where she was born and grew up, will be part of an Amer­i­can pro­duc­tion.

The CEO of Krave En­ter­tain­ment Pro­duc­tions, a To­ba­go-based com­pa­ny, has done it all. When re­gion­al, in­ter­na­tion­al and na­tion­al artistes need some­one or some­thing in To­ba­go, she is their go-to girl.

Williams has an im­pres­sive re­sume, hav­ing worked on many videos, doc­u­men­taries and tele­vi­sion com­mer­cials. Her ma­jor jobs in­clude Bazodee—The movie, the MTV se­ries ‘Girl Trip’ and some of Chef Ains­ley Har­riott’s cook­ing shows on BBC.

She al­so works with sev­er­al lo­cal and re­gion­al so­ca stars, in­clud­ing Sekon Sta, Er­phaan Alves, Naila Black­man and Ri­car­do Drue. She al­so co-hosts a seg­ment on Boston FM every Wednes­day and was just re­cruit­ed by in­ter­na­tion­al book­ing agency Rid­dim­stream.

Williams does all of this while hold­ing down a day job at the Di­vi­sion of Health, Well­ness and Fam­i­ly De­vel­op­ment.

Williams start­ed in the pro­duc­tion busi­ness while work­ing for vet­er­an cul­tur­al artiste Rawle Ti­tus. She then worked at To­ba­go Chan­nel 5 from 2003-2011, host­ing a mu­sic show and work­ing in the pro­duc­tion de­part­ment.

Her ex­pe­ri­ences in both jobs are a far cry from be­ing teased and bul­lied at school be­cause she came from Cas­tara.

“I was al­ways bul­lied be­cause in my in­tro­duc­tion, at school, I al­ways said I was from the fish­ing vil­lage Cas­tara,” she re­called.

But she now cred­its that vil­lage life and her fam­i­ly’s ma­tri­ar­chal struc­ture for her hard work and ded­i­ca­tion.

“Granny used to say let your work speak for it­self and nev­er un­der­es­ti­mate your­self. I learned a lot from mom too,” she said.

It’s the same vil­lage she be­gan giv­ing back to when she left school, in­clud­ing open­ing com­put­er school and teach­ing com­put­er skills for free at her granny’s house. She con­tin­ues giv­ing back and has tak­en her niece Nikoya Se­bro un­der her wings and show­ing her ex­plore her culi­nary skills. Se­bro has won many lo­cal culi­nary com­pe­ti­tions.

As Williams forges ahead in her ca­reer moves, she ad­vis­es up-and-com­ing as­pi­rants in her field, “Have the prop­er mind­set, dri­ve and willpow­er and be­lieve in God. With those be­liefs, noth­ing can stop you.”