“When you wake up in the morning, you never know what the day will bring,” she said. This came from a friend I have not seen in ages, and whom I had not noticed seated in the corridor full of people waiting for service at the Accident and Emergency Department …
Read More »Vaneisa: Operation of municipal corporations as important as crime plan
Little things add up. Irritants that are not, of themselves, enough to make you feel besieged. Combined and constant, they are damaging to the psyche—the way water dripping away for years can erode rocks. Feral cats and stray dogs prowling the neighbourhood, stripping garbage bags and shredding the contents. Garbage …
Read More »Vaneisa: A cry for help to San Juan/ Laventille Regional Corp chair Richard Walcott
I intended to write an open letter to the chair of the San Juan/Laventille Regional Corporation, Richard Walcott. Initially, it was to ask what the municipal body can do about the posse of feral cats that has overtaken the area. When the street was overrun by dozens of free-range chickens …
Read More »Vaneisa: A city of clay—how would you reimagine Trinidad and Tobago?
Imagine that you could have every single thing your heart desires. No restrictions. Do you think you could envisage it all at once? I mean, do you believe that on any given day you know precisely what it would take to make you absolutely content? Unlikely, I’d say at first, …
Read More »Vaneisa: The life of the cave—why choose venom over illumination?
Seeing a big picture requires a lens shaped by multiple streams of information. If you live within the confines of a cave, everything you know is defined by its walls. Not so? It follows that how you respond to events is determined by the knowledge that you have to work …
Read More »Vaneisa: Get up, stand up—T&T must ditch apathy to save country
Responses to the declaration of a state of emergency have predictably been draped in political flags. As usual, everyone knows what should be done, and just as in West Indies cricket, everyone knows where the blame falls. What continues to be apparent is that it is not politically expedient to …
Read More »Vaneisa: Walking away; when to cut your losses and move on
We associate the idea of walking away from something as an admission of failure, of quitting, and giving up. North American films are famous for having protagonists proclaim that they will never quit. Generally, the idea that’s been sold is that one must stick to the thing at all costs. …
Read More »Vaneisa: The ghosts of Christmas yet to come—how ‘small ting’ erodes T&T society
The final visit from the trio of Christmas ghosts takes Ebenezer Scrooge to a future—his possible future if he maintains his current pattern of behaviour. While Charles Dickens depicts this particular spectre as the most dreadful of the lot, it is actually the one who really represents the most hopeful …
Read More »Vaneisa: The ghosts of Christmas Present—festivities without fripperies and foolishness
Comparing Christmas past with what exists nowadays is something I wanted to do as a way of measuring change. It had been partly influenced by the memory of Charles Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol, which was first published in December 1843. I’d thought the story of the miserly, mean-spirited Ebenezer …
Read More »Vaneisa: Ghosts of Christmas Past—cheer, chores and counterfeit
Everyone has their particular memory of childhood Christmas. It is one of those universally observed seasons that is inescapable. Even if you belong to a community that ignores or abhors it, the very act of spurning the commemoration leaves an impression of some sort. The month of December is probably …
Read More »Vaneisa: Out of the loop—six days without the internet
Last Saturday, just before the tea break during the West Indies Test against Bangladesh, I scurried to my kitchen to prepare some herbs for the bhaji rice I was planning to cook on Sunday. It had been pouring heavily, thunder and lightning dropping a menacing feel to the afternoon. Suddenly, …
Read More »Vaneisa: Warming up for Christmas—how to get through a daunting season
I wanted to write something about the approaching season, and found this column from five years ago. It said most of what I wanted to say so I used it as the basis for today’s offering. There’s frenzy. And stillness. Gaiety and brooding. The full spectrum of human emotions stretches …
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