In the late 1930s, the west­ern gate­way in­to Port-of-Spain was a treach­er­ous ex­panse of tidal man­grove swamp and marsh­land.

For As­sis­tant Chief Ex­am­in­er Robin Ram­lal, math­e­mat­ics has nev­er been about mem­o­ris­ing for­mu­las or sur­viv­ing ex­am­i­na­tions.

Cur­rent prob­lems fac­ing Caribbean uni­ty are part of a tur­bu­lent past in which dreams of re­gion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty nev­er ma­te­ri­alised. At­tempts at uni­ty were made in the 1950s to cre­ate an en­ti­ty- Fed­er­a­tion.

More than a cen­tu­ry ago, in the streets of Port-of-Spain, peo­ple seek­ing re­lief from ill­ness could find them­selves mov­ing be­tween worlds.

Ex­change Vil­lage Mud Mandir, al­so known as the Se­wala Mandir in Cou­va and ded­i­cat­ed to Lord Shi­va, is con­sid­ered one of the longest-oc­cu­pied tem­ples in the coun­try.

In April, Dr Sher­rise Sandy, MBBS (UWI), FR­C­Path (UK), sat one of med­i­cine’s most de­mand­ing pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­i­na­tions, be­com­ing the first can­di­date from Trinidad and To­ba­go to com­plete the Fel­low­ship of the Roy­al Col­lege of Pathol­o­gists, the FR­C­Path, as an ex­ter­nal can­di­date, with the en­tire­ty of her train­ing com­plet­ed at Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

For trav­ellers look­ing to ex­pe­ri­ence a dif­fer­ent side of Trinidad, a vis­it to the Nar­i­va Swamp of­fers an op­por­tu­ni­ty to leave the bus­tle of every­day life be­hind and en­ter one of the coun­try’s rich­est nat­ur­al en­vi­ron­ments.

The Trinida­di­an na­tive, who now lives in An­tigua, had even put to­geth­er a spe­cial birthing playlist—trib­al, spir­i­tu­al and pri­mal sounds she wouldn’t usu­al­ly lis­ten to on a reg­u­lar day.

In April, Dr Sher­rise Sandy, MBBS (UWI), FR­C­Path (UK), sat one of med­i­cine’s most de­mand­ing pro­fes­sion­al ex­am­i­na­tions, be­com­ing the first can­di­date from Trinidad and To­ba­go to com­plete the Fel­low­ship of the Roy­al Col­lege of Pathol­o­gists, the FR­C­Path, as an ex­ter­nal can­di­date, with the en­tire­ty of her train­ing com­plet­ed at Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

For Nicholas Deabreau, the steel­pan is more than mu­sic. It is the force that set his cre­ative life in mo­tion.

At Las Cuevas, the colours of Trinidad and To­ba­go take on a fash­ion­able new ex­pres­sion in Bel­mont de­sign­er Saleem Samuel’s lat­est swimwear col­lec­tion, Love Coun­try.

From the dance floor to the gym­nas­tics mat, ath­let­ics track and cul­tur­al per­for­mances, the San Juan teenag­er has spent most of her life de­vel­op­ing the dis­ci­pline, con­fi­dence and cre­ativ­i­ty that now pre­pare her for one of the biggest op­por­tu­ni­ties of her young life.