The roads that wind through San Raphael to­day of­fer few clues that this qui­et east­ern Trinidad com­mu­ni­ty stands be­side one of the most sig­nif­i­cant and trag­ic land­scapes in the is­land’s his­to­ry.

Es­cap­ing a gi­ant alien squid on the moon, hood­wink­ing a dis­grun­tled ghost, win­ning a chut­ney cham­pi­onship, and a scor­pi­on pep­per com­pe­ti­tion. These are some of the wild sto­ries tum­bling from the minds of our na­tion’s chil­dren and in­clud­ed in the Chil­dren’s Sto­ry and Colour­ing Book 10.

This top­ic is one of the most dev­as­tat­ing to write about be­cause we un­der­es­ti­mate the dam­age to our or­gans that can be caused by high blood sug­ar lev­els. As a reg­is­tered di­etit­ian nu­tri­tion­ist, I have to take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to ed­u­cate you on Di­a­betes mel­li­tus (DM). This is a health is­sue that af­fects mil­lions of peo­ple world­wide. Blood sug­ar lev­els rise most­ly be­cause of in­sulin re­sis­tance and can dam­age many vi­tal or­gans. There are del­i­cate blood ves­sels in your eyes which can be dam­aged by high blood sug­ar lev­els, lead­ing to an in­creased risk of vi­sion prob­lems and even blind­ness if left un­treat­ed. Prop­er man­age­ment and lifestyle choic­es can save your eye­sight.

It is a com­mon au­to­mo­tive myth passed down through gen­er­a­tions of dri­vers: if your car is run­ning hot, just pour some tap wa­ter in­to the ra­di­a­tor and keep dri­ving. While adding wa­ter in an ab­solute, strand­ed-on-the-high­way emer­gency is mar­gin­al­ly bet­ter than let­ting your en­gine com­plete­ly melt down, us­ing plain wa­ter as your pri­ma­ry cool­ing flu­id is a guar­an­teed recipe for me­chan­i­cal dis­as­ter.

If you look close­ly at Kes the Band’s much-raved-about NPR Tiny Desk Con­cert per­for­mance, you’ll see a smil­ing De­nil­son Gul­ston play­ing con­gas, bon­gos, and cow­bells next to his fa­ther, Dane Gul­ston, on the steel­pan.

As the rainy sea­son re­turns to Trinidad, so does the rise of par­vovirus cas­es seen in pup­pies. Ca­nine par­vovirus, com­mon­ly known as “par­vo” or even mis­pro­nounced “par­go”, is one of the most se­ri­ous, con­ta­gious dis­eases that af­fects dogs, par­tic­u­lar­ly un­vac­ci­nat­ed pup­pies, lead­ing to se­vere ill­ness and death in Trinidad through­out the year.

Every young artist dreams of tak­ing the stage, lights, mu­sic, and ap­plause. For most chil­dren, this dream is lim­it­ed on­ly by imag­i­na­tion and op­por­tu­ni­ty. For Kay­ley Da Cos­ta, the jour­ney to the stage re­quired some­thing more: an ex­tra­or­di­nary fight against her own body.

This is the sec­ond in a se­ries on men who shaped Trinida­di­an and Caribbean lit­er­a­ture. Af­ter C L R James, I turn to Sam Selvon, known to gen­er­a­tions of Trinida­di­an school­child­ren as the nov­el­ist of Trinidad vil­lages and post­war, Win­drush im­mi­grant Britain, writer of A Brighter Sun, The Lone­ly Lon­don­ers, Ways of Sun­light and the Moses books.

High in the west­ern stretch of Trinidad’s North­ern Range, where the road nar­rows and the land falls away sharply to­ward the Caribbean Sea, Paramin sits wrapped in cloud and breeze.

Quote: “What­ev­er is ex­pressed is im­pressed. What­ev­er you say to your­self, with emo­tion, gen­er­ates thoughts, ideas and be­hav­iours con­sis­tent with those words" – Bri­an Tra­cy.

Like many Caribbean na­tion­als, Ka­iande De­von­ish once set out with a clear ca­reer path, one root­ed in sci­ence, pre­ci­sion, and struc­ture. Trained as a chem­i­cal en­gi­neer, the tran­si­tion in­to Cana­di­an im­mi­gra­tion law was not part of the orig­i­nal plan.

At Take Five Health Bar Cafe on O’Con­nor Street in Wood­brook, the lunch crowd moves steadi­ly be­tween detox juices, salmon bowls, and tartines lay­ered high enough to stop cus­tomers mid-con­ver­sa­tion for pho­tographs.