Most of the damage seems to have been in central and southern Trinidad - pictured here Reform Village, Guaracara River, and lower Barackpore.  

I remember the Deluxe and the Strand, and memories of my mom dressing us in our best to go to the movies.   Do you remember any of these places?

Thought I would share this beautiful photo of tropical birds

The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States’ (OECS) Commission has partnered with Dr. Camille Wardrop Alleyne, NASA space scientist and Founder of the Brightest Stars Foundation, to inspire girls in the OECS region to achieve against all odds.
Trinidad-born NASA aerospace engineer and role model, Dr. Alleyne will use her own journey and Caribbean success story, paired with the positive message of the film “Hidden Figures,” to motivate, inspire and empower 10,000 girls throughout the region to reach their full potential. Her message to them is to dream big dreams and to know that there is no limit to what they can achieve with hard work, determination, focus and a belief in themselves.
“When you empower and inspire youth to believe in themselves and their capacity for greatness, they embrace their power to be the leaders of tomorrow – leaders who will create positive and lasting change in their communities and our world,” Dr. Alleyne said.
“Hidden Figures” is the untold true story of the brilliant African-American women mathematicians who NASA hired in the late 1950’s. These women were instrumental in calculating the flight trajectories that made the mission of the first American to orbit the Earth – John Glenn – successful. Dr Alleyne hopes to use the narrative of “Hidden Figures” to inspire and motivate young Caribbean women to see their potential for greatness.
​The Eastern Caribbean leg of the 10,000 Girls Tour aims to host 1,500 girls in each island, with a particular focus on underserved rural and urban communities. Dr Alleyne and her team plan to visit at least ten Caribbean islands by the end of the year.
The film screening will be followed by a panel discussion led by Dr. Alleyne and that includes a highly accomplished local female STEM model and a female university scholar.
Director General of the OECS, Dr. Didacus Jules commended the initiative saying that “the OECS Education Strategy is committed to gender equality and that the promotion of science, technology, engineering and maths was an important element in the educational formation of young Caribbean women.
“We commend and support this initiative by Dr. Alleyne who is a leading Caribbean Scientist employed in NASA’s Space Program and we are hopeful that this will ignite a passion for the sciences among our girls”.
The 10,000 Girls tour was launched in Trinidad on March 15th 2017, under RBC Caribbean Limited’s Young Leaders Programme and boasted over 340 girls from all across the country.
The Brightest Stars Foundation is a non-governmental organisation that is dedicated to educating, empowering and inspiring young women to be future leaders in the study of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Founded in 2007 by Dr. Camille Wardrop Alleyne, the Brightest Stars Foundation has inspired and empowered over 3000 young people, globally, to see their potential and to strive for excellence in their academic pursuits.
Source:  The Caribbean Current

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As a child, Janique Charles dreamed of having her own show on the popular Disney television channel that engaged her attention almost daily. Now, at 25, this Trinbagonian talent is making an impact on the global stage as she stars in Disney’s highly-acclaimed theatrical production of The Lion King in London.  This beautiful and talented young lady is a proud past-pupil of St Joseph’s Convent, Port of Spain, and can currently be seen and heard roaring eight times per week at the Lyceum Theatre in London. 
She may not have her own Disney show yet, but Charles definitely feels like she is a few steps closer to realising that dream, as she currently performs the coveted role of “Nala” nightly in the 18th season of Disney’s theatrical production of The Lion King. 
“I’m in love with music, singing and performing,” she admitted. “As a child, I dreamed I would be a triple threat superstar like Beyonce—and starring in Blockbuster movies alongside Denzel Washington…
Source:  Trinidad Express

The following is an excerpt taken from an article published in the Trinidad Guardian and gives a bit of the story of these talented men.  (Pink Panther featured in photo) 
Yes, indeed Sangre Grande has produced some fine talent, not only well know locally but internationally as well.  And they were featured in a special show on April 29th which was titled Calypso Icons of Grande.
The icons featured were Scrunter ((Irwin Reyes Johnson); Johnny King (Johnson King); Poser (Sylvester Lockhart); and, Pink Panther, (Eric Taylor)  and  Baron (Timothy Watkins Jnr).
Scrunter is a much beloved name in the calypso world and has been performing for over 40 years. He won the national calypso crown in 1982 with the hits Lick-e-Ting and the classic The Will. Many will no doubt remember, that famous appearance on stage at the Dimanche Gras show, by the late Lord Kitchener (Aldwyn Roberts), when he handed him the will, as the song said “ah just get the will from Lord Kitchener.”
Scrunter’s hits are almost too numerous to mention and include the classic Woman on De Bass, Take De Number, Sing In She Party, Oil in De Coil, among others There is also his many hits in the parang soca genre.
Johnny King, though born in Tobago, has made his home in Sangre Grande for many years.
The now retired policeman, first entered the calypso arena in 1980. He is known for his insightful, thoughtful lyrics with classics like Nature’s Plan, Appreciation, Darling and the mega-hit Wet Meh Down. King has been a finalist many times in the national calypso monarch competition and is well known for his performances at home and abroad,
Veteran and icon Poser, was born in Sangre Grande, in the village of Matura. He won the Sangre Grande calypso monarch crown for five consecutive years before deciding to come into Port-of-Spain to try
​The result is, he became one of the greats himself with hits like Ah Tell She, which won him the 1979 Road March title, Town Man, Party Tonight and Bus Conductor. A true culture lover who also played pan in his youth, Poser is a seasoned performer, both at home and abroad.
Pink Panther, renowned for his well-tailored pink suits, after the cartoon character of the same name, has a funny story to tell about how he got his start at the Kalypso Revue tent where he has been a staple for many years.
He remembers that he was invited there to try out by his brother calypsonian Scrunter as they were both Grande boys, however, tent manager, now deceased Jazzy Pantin, did not like his song We Ketching We Tail and turned him down. It was the founder of the tent Lord Kitchener, who took him under his wing after chatting with him and realising he’d composed his song and beat Scrunter with it in the Grande competition.
Pink Panther says not only did Kitch become a mentor and friend, but also, so did Kitch’s lifelong friend, Pretender. He recalls many Sunday sessions, honing the craft of calypso at Kitch’s home, Rainorama, in Diego Martin. He also credits National Calypso Monarch Chalkdust (Hollis Liverpool), with being another of his mentors. Panther is known for his satirical social and political commentary Dey Laughing In De Ghetto and is always a favourite with the crowd in the calypso monarch competition.

In his book A Turn in the South, VS Naipaul, who was born in 1932, writes: “In the Indian countryside of my childhood in Trinidad there were many murders and acts of violence, and these acts gave the Trinidad Indians, already separated from the rest of the island by language, religion, and culture, a fearful reputation.” In the 19th century, Trinidadian men typically carried weapons ranging from knives to swords to pistols—indeed, the last item could be readily purchased from stores in Port-of-Spain and San Fernando. Only in 1844 was legislation passed in an attempt to control violence, with Ordnance No 8 making it a capital offence to wound anyone with the intent to kill. According to historian C R Ottley in his book East and West Indians Rescue Trinidad, the first person to be executed the following year under this law was an East Indian man who had attacked a woman and maimed her.
In that era, Indian men in central Trinidad carried the same stigma that young black men from Laventille have today. Almost half of all crimes were committed by Indians, although most of these were minor offences like having unlicenced dogs, traffic violations and, of course, leaving the sugar estate without permission or other breaches of the indentureship contract. However, in his autobiography Inward Hunger, Dr Eric Williams recalls how, on the night of June 24 in 1911, when Trinidadians were celebrating the coronation of King George V, a Chinese shopkeeper was murdered and his shop set afire; seven Indian men were charged and three of them were convicted and hanged. This was one of 16 murders committed by Indians that year, who also accounted for two-thirds of shooting with intent and one-third of manslaughter convictions in the colony. Williams notes, “Half of the prisoners in 1911 were Hindus or Muslims.”
The Colonial Office actually had a separate category for murders in the Indian community, in which domestic murders were rife. Between 1895 and 1900, for example, there were 26 killings among Indian immigrants in Trinidad, and 21 of the victims were women. In part, this penchant for violence was due to the sex imbalance that was a direct result of unequal numbers of men and women coming from India in search of a better life on Trinidad’s sugar estates. But the 1911 Census noted that “The excess of males in the total population is...caused by East Indian immigration, and the statistics of previous Censuses...induce one to believe this is diminishing.”
Even though in most societies women typically outlive men, the Trinidad Indian cohort curiously had more widowers than widows—an average of 140 men whose wives had died, as compared to an average of 85 women whose husbands had died. For the rest of the Trinidadian population, there were more women than men over the age of 75. The higher number of Indian widowers suggests either that marriage conferred some longevity benefit on men, or shortened women’s lives or, possibly, that long-lived men were more likely to get married. The 1931 Census further noted that “East Indians regard the marriage ceremony as an essential institution of social life and accordingly early marriages are not infrequently contracted, though they are seldom ratified by registration. The tendency of East Indians to describe themselves as married where the conditions of the law have not been fully carried out has embarrassed both enumerators and tabulators.”
When the supply of indentured labourers from India ceased in 1917, Indians comprised 15 per cent of the population, or about 50,000 people, but Trinidadians of Indian descent accounted for 17 per cent (58,000). Two generations after their arrival, Indians thus made up one-third of the colony’s population, but 40 per cent of native Trinidadians. By 1931, according to the Census, Indians accounted for 114,946 or 28 per cent of the population, with 83 per cent born in the colony, meaning that, just 86 years after the first labourers arrived in 1845, there were more locally-born people of Indian descent than African descent in Trinidad. Native-born Trinidadians, including Indians, accounted for just 45 per cent of the population. Put another way, although Indians were a minority and considered by African-Caribbean people as alien, Indian-descent people very early became Trinidadians as defined by place of birth.
In 1911, one Indian boy out of ten and one Indian girl out of 14 went to school, as compared to the rest of the population where half of boys under 15 attended school and two out of every five girls. Illiteracy among the general population was 53 per cent, but for East Indians it was 96 per cent. Nonetheless, Indians had already begun to lay the foundation for their descendants’ future. (See Table One) A 1918 ad in the PoS Gazette from the Trinidad Government Savings Bank listing accounts which had been inactive for ten years gives some insight into the financial status of the working class. In the Port-of-Spain branch, most of the customers were labourers who had up to 17 shillings in these accounts. But Rampirith from Cunupia had £8 in his account, Mithania from Arouca had deposited £11, and Rampersad from Icacos Village had £12. In the San Fernando branch of the bank, most of the depositors were also labourers, nearly all Indian and therefore most likely sugar estate workers, with £14 being the largest sum from Bugaloo of Usine St Madeline. All this suggests that agricultural workers, whose wages ranged from 40 cents to 60 cents a day (or $8 to $10 a month), were still able to save part of their incomes even during the war years. To contextualise these rates within the cost of living, a 1936 report of the Wages Advisory Board noted that in 1920 a basket of groceries for one healthy man cost between $2 and $2.50 per month. But Indians had a reputation for frugality to the point of malnourishment. Historian K O Laurence in A Question of Labour records that, between 1910 and 1917, Indian labourers remitted a total of £57,981 to India, which was an average of $81 per person.
Thus, although Indo-Trinidadians were still mainly poor sugar workers, several had already begun establishing themselves among the hitherto exclusively white business class. A 1921 notice in the PoS Gazette about the election of directors of the San Fernando Cinematograph Company Ltd included “Messrs Sultan Khan, M A Ghany, F Mahabir and S Boodoosingh.” Three of those four names were to remain leading business and political personages up to the late 20th century. Between 1921 and 1930, Indians continued to return to India after their contracts ended. In this decade, the Indian population in the colony dropped by just over 14,000, with 7,982 going back to India and the rest dying. So only a small minority of Indians—seven per cent—chose to leave Trinidad.
One hundred years later, as shown in Table Two, nearly all who stayed are better off by all standard measures than the average person in India.


Sources: CSO, Williams 1969, Ryan 1996. Source: CIA World Factbook, UNDP
TABLE 1: Indian progress in past 100 years
1917 96% illiterate 50% Indian 99% labourers
2017 66% scholarship 25% Indo-Trinidadian 42% of business persons, 59% law winners firms, 80% doctors
TABLE 2: Comparative indicators for India and T&T


Indicator India Trinidad and Tobago
Sex ratio 1 female to 12 males 1 female to 1.06 males
Infant mortality 30 per 1000 15 per 1000
Life expectancy 69 years 73 years
Functional literacy 61% 85%
Source:    Kevin Baldeosingh, Trinidad Guardian