Batting first at the Syne Village Ground in Penal, hosts Power- Gen closed day one on a massive 358 runs for seven wickets. Sookdeosingh struck an aggressive 118 off 124 balls with 15 fours and two sixes, while Nicholson scored an unbeaten 105 off 234 deliveries hitting six fours and two sixes. The second wicket partnership between Nicholson and Sookdeosingh was worth 133 runs. Akeil Cooper pitched in with 50, while Kerwyn Sirju (3/71) and Samuel Roopnarine (3/80) were the chief wicket-takers for Clarke Road.

At the Brian Lara Recreation Ground in Santa Cruz, Merry Boys closed on 144/6 against Central Sports. Mario Belcon top scored with 52, while Jeetendra Sookdeo is unbeaten on 30. Bowling for Central Sports, the experienced Shazan Babwah took 3/52 and Kissoondath Magram grabbed 2/33.

No play was possible in the other two matches featuring Alescon Comets and Jailal Enterprise Victoria at Pierre Road Recreation Ground in Charlieville and Tableland versus Queen’s Park at St Julien Road Recreation Ground.

The final of the 50-over competition between Queen’s Park and Merry Boys will be played at the National Cricket Centre from 10 am today.

Joelisa, a goal attack and goal shoot for TT and Police, is also the mother of five-year-old Jacelon Adams and a crime scene investigator at the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service. Joelisa is among a select few to lead TT at a Netball World Cup, resulting in a ninth-place finish at the 2015 edition in Sydney, Australia.

Joelisa, who started playing netball at age nine under the guidance of Enid Browne, said the sport has taught her valuable life lessons which she hopes Jacelon will emulate.

“Most importantly I would say discipline – discipline, discipline, discipline. I am very competitive and the ball will not always roll into your court all the time. Sometimes you lose, but you must have the mindset that ‘I lost this time or the person outplayed me this time, but the next time that is not going to happen.’ The discipline of sticking to a time schedule and sticking to what you are doing and doing that until you accomplish it.”

Joelisa explained it is important to understand that preparation is key to succeed in life. “Discipline is a wide umbrella, the aspect of training and preparing yourself for something is important. You can’t just appear one day and say, ‘Hey I could real jump.’ Or in his school work he can’t say ‘I real smart or I know this’, you have to prepare yourself both physically and mentally.”

Joelisa, who captained the Morvant Laventille Secondary School team, reflected on the first time she played for TT as a junior athlete.

“My first coach Miss Enid Browne, she groomed us actually for the national team because her objective was always to make the national team. The time that she said, ‘you are now okay to go and try out for the national team’ was for the Under-16 national team, when I was the age of 15.”

Joelisa said balancing her netball career, her job and motherhood is challenging at times but says she has learned how to prioritise.

“It is a bit challenging, but what I do really well is prioritise. My first thing on the list is him (Jacelon). He is with me all the time, all of my national training and Police service training also. It is a bit challenging sometimes, because of course he has homework and projects to do. It is basically trying to manage our time because outside of my schedule, he has a time table also. So far, however, it has been working out really well.”

Joelisa, who admires the late Jean Pierre and Irene van Dyk of New Zealand, says she feels sad to leave her son to compete in tournaments overseas.

Joelisa was back on the court mere months after he was born and says her support system made that possible.

“It is really difficult (to leave him). When I had him in 2011, we had a tournament here in Trinidad in 2012. After having him I came back to the court when he was three months. It was extremely difficult when I was away from him. The tournament was here, thank God, so his dad brought him to all the games. My first time leaving him we went to South Africa. That was extremely hard because I am a very territorial person. I am like a lioness when it comes to him so I am always over the shoulder of everybody who has him. The first time I left him I literally cried I would admit, but I knew that he was in good hands of course with my mom and his dad. I called every single chance I got and messaged to make sure that he was okay.

“What keeps me going is that I am doing something for my country and I am trying to make him proud also.”

Jacelon may also represent this country soon. Joelisa revealed her son, who is always by her side, is showing athletic ability in cricket, football and basketball, and is a favourite among her teammates.

“He grew up on the court, he knows all the players, all the players know him.”

The things that sustain us throughout this journey are the same essential staples that we instil in our kids from birth. Prayer, Sacrifice, Love. They didn’t ask us to have them, as we are often told, or to commit to them. We choose to. If their affections are returned (and hopefully they are) we count ourselves as blessed.

For us to survive these stages, there must be a beacon of light that guides our way. For me, this light has been my relationship with Our Lady and what she represents – Stability. Hope. Patience. Endurance.

Humility. Endless Love.

As Mary did, there are many times where we are silent as we ponder and keep life’s unbearable tragedies in our hearts. At other times however, we have had to speak up and out, shaping and moulding our children, pruning and trimming the rough edges of rebellion, rudeness, their insecurities and doubts.

This is our duty. They may not have chosen us, but God certainly choose us, for them.

Motherhood teaches you to harness the energies of unconditional love, to nurture and to endure. In the darkest moments of our lives, when we are bombarded by disappointment, failure, mistrust, and we are losing hope, we must begin the process of exfoliation, that is, by hard work, getting rid of these negative externals and instead, clothe ourselves with Mary’s characteristics, breathing in the constants that she embraces.

As I write this, I think of mothers that I know: a 28-year-old who can neither read nor write, yet struggles valiantly to care for her six children; Margaret Kistow who has mothered more than 100 orphaned and abandoned children; those who travel thousands of miles to rescue their children from despair; my grandmother Emelda who held parties for children in Laventille in her small home; my mother Rita who raised seven of us to be independent and vocal, despite many challenges. And the words reverberate in my head: Prayer. Sacrifice. Love. As they did, we nurture our children as we have been nurtured. We love as we are taught to love.

Mothers lead by example. As we celebrate those women in our lives who have mothered us, whether they are our birth mothers or those who have been our primary care givers, our celebrations will be largely based on our individual experiences and definitions of what motherhood means to us.

It is not uncommon for us to believe that all mothers should be warm, affectionate and caring, yet some of us have mental and emotional scars from those instances where our care givers failed to nurture and appropriately care for us as children.

The ability to manage these challenges successfully necessitates that we practise self-care and heal our inner pain, so that a generational cycle of instability, conflict and imbalance does not recur.

St Teresa of Kolkata once said that if we ever feel distressed to call upon Our Lady and say this simple prayer, “Mary, Mother of Jesus, please be a mother to me now.” As mothers, sometimes we may not get it right, especially as we want to do it “better” than our mothers did, but the accomplishment is in getting up and trying again.

So Happy Mothers’ Day to all of you who continue to inspire, motivate and remind us to be better, every day, every moment of our lives.

Ora pro nobis, Mater Dei.

* Margaret Nakhid-Chatoor is a mother of four young adults, and mother-in-law of one.

Record-breaking is the hobby of Gertrude Ann Browne-John, better known in the sporting world as “Miss Ann”. She described that particular experience as, “A feeling I cannot explain because we won being the underdogs. The odds were against us from day one and it was even better to repeat the celebration with the men.” The TT’s Hall-of-Famer, as an administrator, must have been ebullient by the achievement, but was more relieved to _ nally be victorious at this level – a feat she did not accomplish in her two ICC World Cups 50 overs in 1993 and 1997 as captain, then in 2005 as coach.

Her appreciation for sports started while in the womb of her national cricketing mother Bernice, just over 60 years ago in Belmont, and continued as she grew up in a sporting family – seven sisters, four brothers and her cricket loving parents. All eight females played for the family team, Merry Girls and two of her sisters Louise and Beverly also represented both the national and West Indies teams.

The Humming Bird silver awardee attended Melville Memorial Girls Primary School and St Francois Girls College. She recalled, “I was doing the Mathematics O’ Level exams and my father was outside in the car waiting on me to play a cricket match as soon I was completed.” Being a national cricketer was not challenging enough for the polymath sportswoman, so she took up hockey at the Paragon club and became a dual national player. This decision was not only bene_ cial to her but to TT, as it harnessed the skills development of the country’s most capped and probably best ever hockey player, Kwandwane Browne.

“Kwan is my nephew but he grew up with me from two-years-old. He attended hockey matches with me and we allowed him to play with us. There were mornings I woke up to hear balls knocking against the wall, and this was when he was only _ ve-years-old. I’m proud of what he continues to achieve.” The time management expert reminisced, “It was difficult to be playing two national sports, especially when both of them are played in the same seasonal period. So, I had cricket practice on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday afternoon, plus Hockey on a Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday mornings.” The TT’s Top 50 Sporting Legends inductee remembered, “I left for Jamaica with the national cricket team for the Regional Cricket Tournament, which we won and a couple days after returning home I left again with the national hockey team for the Caribbean Tournament.

And we were also victorious. In those days, I worked as a Customs Officer and I didn’t take vacations because I was so ashamed for being away so often on national duty.” She represented TT in hockey at two Central American and Caribbean (CAC) and two Pan American Games between (1986-1991), while her cricket career lasted 22 years from (1975-1997). Her most notable match was against Australia in 1993 World Cup when she batted the entire innings and scored 65 not out.

She endured early struggles such as the stigma of women participating in a male dominating sport of cricket, as well as the _ nancial strain to purchase the expensive cricket gear. But, she overcame it due to her full-time support of family members, coaches and teammates, with her husband, Septimus being at the top of the list. So how did motherhood factor in in her hectic sporting life? “My husband is really supportive, believe it or not he loves sports more than me, and with my intense schedule he took the responsibility of minding our daughter, Sasha.” She boasts about her friendship-style relationship with Sasha. “I tried to pattern myself like my mother because she was a special person, she was always there for all her children. I learnt that motherhood increases your responsibility; you must adjust and have a good relationship with your children,” something that is re_ ected in the special message Sasha sent to her mother via WMN.

“My mom is one of my closest friends who has given me the opportunity to be open with her and I’ve grown to appreciate that. She has done everything in her life with such dignity, class and respect. She taught me to be kind to others and always stay humble. People who know her would know that she’s a very simple person despite all the great things she has done. She is not only the type of mom I hope to be some day but she’s also the sort of person I strive to be every day! Mom, because this day is so special in terms of honouring our mothers, I would like to publicly thank you for everything you have done for me and express how for grateful and honoured I am to have a mom like you. I love you!” Miss Ann lives by her favourite quote, “True love is forever” as she continues to do what she loves, for as long as possible

It was while on the maternity ward at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, Mt Hope in 2015, that Edmund made the decision that this was her calling.

And after giving birth to her second daughter, Arlene-May Chan Wai Hong, the Facebook page, Trinimomcorner, was born. The page is solely dedicated to providing valuable information on pregnancy and motherhood.

To date, it has 883 Facebook “Likes’. Edmund tells Sunday Newsday the initiative has evolved into a charitable organisation, with over 25 families receiving assistance since its inception in April last year.

“Trinimomcorner started as a page that I made to provide information. I started because a lot of people don’t know a lot of things. They don’t know about breast feeding, they don’t know about the first days (of motherhood), they don’t know about parenting and they have a lot of questions and they don’t have an informed circle like I do to help them. I started really to educate about car safety and all these things, and it kind of morphed into a charity organisation. I talk to them (mothers) and do perspective shifting. I still try to do articles but it’s more like a community help thing,” she explains.

The former El Dorado Senior Comprehensive student says, “I’ve always wanted to do something with moms. When I made Arlene-May, next to me in the hospital there was a mother who had just had her baby and she had nothing. She didn’t know she was pregnant (until late), how far along she was, she didn’t know anything and they kept the baby from her because she did not even get HIV tested. She did not even have clothes to change.

From that experience, the mothers in the room who barely had – and who had – gave her (items) for her child, and that kind of showed me that we need that kind of community effort.

“We need to stop saying ‘seven children, look how she make all them children’ and understand (maybe) she was raped, she wasn’t educated. And that was my catalyst to say I need to do something about what I am seeing.

Last year we did lectures for breastfeeding week. We teamed up with (chutney star) Omardath Maharaj and his wife and we did talks in St Helena about breastfeeding, and sustainability in breastfeeding. Right now I’m training with the Trinidad and Tobago Breastfeeding Association as a counsellor.” And the initiative went a few steps further. “We do activities like raising funds for food and clothing and baby essentials; collect any used items, clean them, store them and hand them out to people who are in need. Last year also we took a family on over the August vacation and provided them with all their books, shoes and uniforms (for their children) – everything they need to go back to school.” Edmund says generally the response from the public has been positive, with the support of family, friends and benevolent individuals.

She notes though, that some people have been sceptical of the efforts, offering instead to donate condoms.

She questions this rigid stance, arguing: “People need to get help to get back on the right track or find the right track, because some of them don’t know it. But other than that we have amazing people who donate generously to the cause, either monetarily or to come and drop food, or this and that.” Edmund, however, is not swayed by her detractors who think she’s just giving handouts, as she believes the charitable arm of Trinimomcorner empowers individuals.

“We’ve been from Barrackpore to Valencia helping people.

You would not believe that the same persons we’ve helped turn around and help others. One of the first families we helped, the husband lost his job and the wife had four kids already and they were on the fifth.

“He used to be a truck driver but lost his job and she had this baby on the way and things started to fall apart. But she’s resourceful, she began to sew and she made cakes for a number of our birthday parties. She came and gave back and now they’re on their feet. It’s not about a hand-out, it’s more a hand up.” Edmund plans to have Trinimomcorner registered as a non-governmental organisation in the near future, but says there are certain steps that must be taken to prove what they are do doing.

“Some people say you’re doing this just for (publicity on) Facebook but you kind of have to do that,” she explains.

She is hoping in five years to set-up a subsidised daycare to assist working mothers whose incomes are small, but need that service because they have no one to supervise their children.

“When in an abusive relationship, we think that we can’t leave for numerous reasons. The reason I stayed was for my children, I did not want them to come from a broken home, I wanted to keep my family together,” the 43-year-old tells Sunday Newsday.

“It took me 14 years to come out of the loneliness and depression I was in. I got severe burns from being in the relationship,” she says, recalling one particular incident in 1999 when a violent outburst by her then husband resulted in severe burns to her face, chest and arms.

“I would stay inside a lot of the times, and not socialise because of the many scars on my skin. I always had to have on makeup, until one day I decided, you know what, this is enough. I have to start being comfortable with myself. This is me, this is what happened and I started taking the negative which took place in my life and changing it into a positive for someone else.” Her new aim and focus in life is to help other women deal with and eventually get out of violent relationships.

“Someone would listen to me more because I speak from experience and I can identify with what they are going through. If I could go to one of my motivational seminars and touch one person, then I know for sure I am doing something good. I have been able to help a lot of women get out of abusive relationships,” Wharwood says. She frequently gives speeches at the Princes Town Hospital and at the Seventh Day Adventist Church, San Fernando, where she ends her talks on a tender and emotional note – by removing her makeup, revealing all her scars to the audience.

“It is always moving when I bare myself to the audience. What I convey by removing my makeup is that I accept and love myself. It is never too late for them to do the same and many women would come up to me after and say that they are being abused in their relationships.

I talk to them and then I give them the contacts and addresses for the Domestic Violence Abuse Hotline, The Rape Crisis Society, Victim and Witness support, individual, group and family counselling as well as domestic violence drop in centres.” Married at the age of 23, she moved from Princes Town to Diamond Vale, Diego Martin along with her husband and two children.

“I met my ex-husband at the age of 17, at that time I was more in love with him than I was with myself, that was my mistake. Before we got married I knew he was violent, because there were instances when he would get physical and verbally abusive with me. I thought he would change when we got married, but things only got worse. To the point where it started affecting our children,” as threats had turned into blatant acts of violence.

“We had to get out,” Wharwood recalls emotionally.

So what gave her the courage to leave? “Prayer and faith gave me the strength to leave, as I attended Holy Cross RC Church, Princes Town. It wasn’t making any sense losing my peace of mind and happiness. I went right back home to my family, who were really supportive, financially and emotionally. It was the most depressing time of my life.” But there was also a silver lining – her independent and philanthropic spirits were ignited.

In 2015 she re-opened her Princes Town-based Hair Work’s by Allison, and registered Once is Too Much, a non-profit organisation that aims to help victims of domestic violence and other forms of abuse. The organisation uses motivational speeches, support groups and prayer to help victims deal with and eventually escape their abusive situations. Once is Too Much also tries to educate the community of Princes Town about domestic violence and its signs.

“The long-term goal of Once is Too Much is to open a safe house where victims can come and feel like home. Where we would help in building them so they can become people who are not dependent on their abusers,” Wharwood explains.

Despite her experiences, Wharwood continues to be the family-oriented person she has always been. She plays an active role in her children’s lives. “I am truly blessed to have wonderful children. My daughter, Afiya, 24, makes me so proud and my two sons Justin, 20, has Down Syndrome, and Jayden, nine, are my life. I love them dearly,” she says with tears in her eyes. Justin is also member of the Down Syndrome Family Network.

What advice would she give to someone who is a victim of domestic violence? “I would tell that person to leave, just leave. Do not try to take matters into your own hands, love yourself first and know your worth. Love is not supposed to make you unhappy, and seek God for help. He is the only one who sees what you have been through, pray for the courage to leave and once you leave, do not go back.” Abigail Allison Wharwood can be contacted via: abigailwharwood@ gmail.com and hairworksbyallison@gmail.com

Today, I have streamlined a makeup routine for all you busy moms out there. A little makeup can go a long way, for not only helping you look rested and radiant, but giving you a moment to actually relax. I know a lot of moms who look forward to their morning beauty routine, just because it gives them an excuse to sit alone, clear their head and relax for a few minutes while they prepare themselves to take on the day.

If you can spare five minutes from your busy day, then you can do this. I have designed this routine to be quick, efficient and toddler-proof, using multi-purpose products that will make you look more awake and refreshed. The most important rule is to skip any unnecessary steps; if you have clear skin, skip foundation. If you have full or natural eyebrows, skip filling them in. This is the key to getting things done quickly.

Let’s get started on your five-minute face. Firstly, always protect your skin. When you are on the go, you can forget to apply your sun protection, which can lead to premature aging. The last thing you want on top of your busy life if to accelerate the appearance of hyperpigmentation and wrinkles. Whether you choose to apply it in the form of moisturiser, BB cream or foundation, be sure to keep it in your routine. Even a quick run to the grocery or picking your kids up from school can expose you to the sun’s harmful rays, which over time, can be damaging.

Tip: If you have an infant or toddler, I recommend skipping heavy foundation. They can reach out and grab your face, scratching your skin with their tiny nails. Your makeup will end up under those delicate fingernails of theirs, so the less you have on, the better. Opt for a lightweight tinted moisturiser, powder foundation, or skip it completely if you don’t need the coverage. Definitely avoid heavier cream or liquid formulas.

If your skin is clear but you have dark circles, only apply concealer under your eyes. It shouldn’t be lighter than your skin tone since there won’t be any foundation for it to blend or fade into; just your bare skin. I like liquid concealers for this step because they’re the easiest to blend and look the most natural.

Tarte’s Shape Tape or LA Girl Pro Conceal are my picks. Lightly set under eyes with powder to reduce the chance of your concealer creasing. Perk up your cheeks with a sweep of blush or bronzer; a little colour on the cheeks will help to add definition to your face and lift your complexion, making you look more awake and healthy. Opt for a baked blush, or one that has a nice luminosity to it, so you won’t have to highlight separately.

Sweep a bit of your bronzer over your eyelids with a fluffy blending brush. This will add some definition to your eyes without much effort. If you want to, you can apply a liquid or pencil eyeliner to your upper lash line to add definition to your eyes. Create whatever style you are comfortable with, whether that’s smokey liner, winged cat eyes, or classic liner. If you can’t manage doing eyeliner, that’s okay. Just curl your eyelashes if you need to, and apply a generous coat of your favourite mascara. Focus on the roots of your lashes, and wiggle the wand upwards and outwards. This will create depth at the base of your lashes, which can actually look like eyeliner. Fill in your eyebrows if you need to with either pencil or powder, and set them with a brow gel if the hairs are unruly.

Lastly, apply your favourite lip colour. Whether that’s a bold red or pretty pink lipstick, a tinted lip balm or a lip gloss. The look we created is neutral enough to work with whatever lip your heart desires.

All they know is that they’re doing what they’ve been advised to do — going to school, concentrating in class, doing the homework — and still there is no guarantee of light at the end of the tunnel in the form of a glittering future.

Taking it seriously was never part of the average young person’s way of thinking, but it’s being forced upon them, because the days of gliding through your education and parachuting into a soft, grassy field of abundant jobs are long gone.

The relentless drive to acquire qualifications has resulted in a changing of expectations, but the levelness of the playing field remains the same. Once upon a time a university degree was a fairly unusual accomplishment, but once the floodgates had opened and in many parts of the world university had become the norm for students of reasonable if unexceptional ability, employers started insisting that a degree was essential for even an undemanding role in their company.

And they can do that now because so many young people have that group of letters after their name.

If you don’t have a degree, it’s just an easy way for them to narrow the field down. You won’t even get past the secretary who sifts through the CVs to save the boss the trouble.

Unfortunately, as the standards of the exams have dropped and it has become easier to gain certificates, the world may be full of better qualified people, but that does not mean people better equipped to do the job. You find some with a degree in English, for instance, who still have no real mastery of the language. There are few things more disappointing for a lover of language than to meet a BA in English who talks as if he or she did the course via Whatsapp and whose terms of reference are more Kardashian than Dostoevsky.

The world is being dumbed down as many of the naturally gifted accept the unwritten mantra that “my ignorance is as good as your knowledge”.

That makes the youngsters who do know what they’re doing stand out –— but only when you dig past the diplomas.

Role models are different nowadays, anyway. While Henry Ford, Richard Branson and Bill Gates were bright young men who followed their dreams and built their success gradually, we’re now in the age of the instant tycoon, the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, who was barely out of nappies when he and his pals had the bright idea that became Facebook. It’s the modern equivalent of the rags to riches story, but starting with a comfortably- off student rather than a street urchin and exploding into financial orbit in the blink of an eye.

Young people today have more options to pursue, or perhaps to daydream about, than ever — even if some are unrealistic. When so-called celebrities get money thrown at them for doing nothing of value, contributing zero to the welfare of mankind, why should a teenager make an effort to become a valuable member of the community? In the case of the Caribbean nations, sport used to be a way out.

The great cricketers who rose from these small places to become internationally lauded were doing what the socially disadvantaged youth of the wider world had been doing for a century and a half.

But is the West Indies’ lack of success since the golden era of the 1980s due to the potential stars pursuing other, equally worthwhile avenues? Or is it because the current crop just can’t be bothered? That would be foolish, because there’s money in it now like there never was before. Just ask Chris Gayle, whose primary interest seems to be financial gain rather than the glory of his extended country.

He’s a trailblazer of sorts, who has made it acceptable for cricketers to go off and earn a fortune in the Indian Premier League and other money spinning ventures when it clashes with the test matches and one-dayers and T20s that the rest of their compatriots are fulfilling.

Gayle and his multinational colleagues might be mercenaries, but their pursuit of filthy lucre isn’t doing anyone any harm — unless you count cricket-lovers who would like to see him batting for the national cause, rather than the less gifted substitute who is, at least, glad of the opportunity (and the cash). Careers teachers have always been on a hiding to nothing, slapping down the starry-eyed and encouraging the pessimistic.

But we must all follow our dreams and aim high or we’ll never get anywhere.

The exhibition began on April 12 and ended on May 6. It showcased the creativity of final-year visual arts students of the DCFA at the National Museum and Art Gallery in Port-of-Spain.

The art work of 25 students included paintings, sculptures, installations, photography, product designs, and fashion designs.

Young design student, Jerrell Riley in his piece, Wide Awake, explores the cultural realm, focusing on the Trinbagonian youth’s connection to their own cultural identity.

He uses coveralls as his medium to symbolise the productivity of the local work force, attaching prominent cultural figures such as the country’s first prime minister Dr Eric Williams, Olympic gold medallist Keshorn Walcott and artist Carlisle Chang to his work. Riley marries the concepts of fashion and cultural icons to promote nationalism and patriotism in the labour force.

Riley says his design is aimed at “taking our local culture and consciousness into the street fashion realm”. Wide Awake, he said, encourages the youth to look inward and promote hardworking values.

A Memoriam created by Joy Rajnauth is a special dedication to her mother. The sculptural hand positions depict emotions and moments that Rajnauth experienced with her mother. They portray the influential impact of her mother’s career as a seamstress, as well as her level of spirituality. Rajnauth hopes her art help viewers understand the parent/child connection. Impenetrable, an insulation sculpture created by Virginia D’Ornellas demonstrated the artist’s inner emotional journey in understanding herself.

It is moulded from layers of clay and plaster, which she says represents her self-discovery in making and breaking the wall of forgiveness in her mind. D’Ornellas believes creating art is important not only for the viewers but for artists as well because without it, “we lose what it is to be real and human”.

Artist Shayna Karim uses design as her personal outlet to help solve problems in society. Karim’s piece, Al-Jadidah is a fashion and detailing design for the hijab. Her inspiration comes from her own cultural up-bringing, in which a struggle has always existed for people who keep the Islamic practice of wearing a hijab. Karim’s ambition is to introduce unique Arabic fashion designs that are expressive, trendy while still being modest. She also wants her fashion to not be limited to Islamic women, but incorporated into the wardrobes of every Caribbean woman.

Camille Parris, one the fledgling artists, revealed her functional design called Octopals.

She said its intent is to address the lack of attention given to cerebral palsy, a neurological disorder that affects many children.

Parris’ younger brother lives with cerebral palsy and depends on a wheelchair to get around.

However, she said, its design does not always accommodate his needs. Octopals, a colourful wheelchair attachment, is meant to change this. The attachment takes the shape of an octopus that provides back-support. The legs can be adjusted to fit each child’s individual need. She uses bright green, yellow and red to appeal to the children. Her art piece is intended “to create comfort and therapy for kids” and to provide a supportive pal for children with cerebral palsy.

By the time you read this the yellow and the pink poui trees should be blazing forth in floral celebration.

Yes, we have seen some of these already, stimulated by the isolated showers which have been teasing our parched land, but the literal explosions of colour, on our hills, across our savannahs and along our highways should be with us all today.

And the greening of our hillsides and parched countryside will follow. Leaves will return to seemingly skeletal trees, and grasses will sprout again from the blackened earth where misguided people have “cleaned” the land with fire.

These first rains bring new life to our land, the hillsides and forests; variegated green hillsides begin embracing the jewels of all the flowering trees. This is all very comforting, even cooling of course, following the harsh dry season. But it has not been too harsh a dry season this year.

There have been fewer bush fires — especially across the southern face of the northern range — this year. Additionally, we had rains in February and early March before the dry season really settled on the land.

And these rains added precious water to our main reservoirs, so we have not been forced to impose water curfews as in recent years. So we should welcome the rains with a reasonable sense of relief rather than as an answer to desperate prayers.

So why then are there communities across central and south Trinidad which have no water in their mains and their homes? These shortages cannot be caused by the dry season if there is water in the main reservoirs.

And indeed, why are the popular beaches of Maracas and Las Cuevas without a water supply for visitors there— little has been said of the residents of these two communities regarding water for their homes.

Is there water in the villages, but not at the beach facilities? And if so, then these shortages cannot be caused by the dry season? Certainly all of the streams along the north coast are still flowing, so once again it appears that human failings, rather than the dry season, are punishing our citizens.

So while the showers may cool and nourish the land, the rains may not be bringing water supplies to the people of central and south Trinidad, nor the beach users at Maracas and Las Cuevas.

The problems here remain as they have always been—failure of the people who are paid to deliver services to us. And the tasks are not difficult, or beyond us.

They are simply not undertaken, and our country continues to fall apart because of wilful neglect.

And we continue to appear powerless to deal with the issues which continue to bring us down. Whether it is repairing pipes or oil storage tanks at Petrotrin, or delivering water through existing pipelines at WASA, or providing marine transport to Tobago, finding a new commissioner of police, or appointing new judges to our courts, we fail. As we fail, we all seem to be very good at casting blame elsewhere and at washing our collective hands of responsibility for the failures all around us. We always have water to wash our hands and clean ourselves of responsibility for our ongoing failures.

However, as welcome as the rains are following the dry season, they soon present us with other problems, mostly flooding and landslips. As I drive the roads of the East-West Corridor, I notice that the river beds are still cluttered with garbage and tall grass. It seems that we can never clear any of these drains in the dry months—we must wait until the flooding occurs before we understand that drains and rivers clogged with bush and garbage cause more flooding than the actual rainfall.

We have been extremely lucky in that major rain events have largely spared our islands.

In November last year we had one—in the remote side of the northern range, between Grande Riviere and Blanchisseuse. In the forests, mountain streams rose 40 feet deep with rushing water.

One can go into the forests to this day, and see forest debris still stuck high in the trees bordering the streams.

As I have written here before, if that rainstorm had fallen on the southern side of the mountains, whole communities in the East-West Corridor would have been swept away.

The flooding would be much worse because the hills and valleys have been deforested and covered with galvanized roofing.

The truth is that we have been lucky so far. The rains which we so welcomed in May might be cursed in December.

Or we can p r e p a r e our drains to cope with what is to come? T h e choice is ours.