Health

When Professor Emeritus Arnold Rampersad spoke to graduating students of the Faculty of Humanities and Education at The UWI in 2009, he drew their attention to the notion of Self. Casting himself in the role of a “scholar-critic committed to biography and autobiography” (for which he is globally acclaimed), he …

Chapter 1: Tiny Weird Identifiable Lump (TWIL)… TWIL showed up in April—or rather I found TWIL in April. It is strange because self-exams were not a routine for me even though I knew the importance. I always had dense tissue and would get an annual ultrasound just to make sure …

Last Wednesday, a letter to the editor appeared in the Express that was so poignant it made me abandon what I had intended to write. Exactly 25 years ago today, Daniel Bertie’s father, Trevor, was shot and killed by bandits in St Clair. “I remember everything. I remember his last …

For whatever reason, the Express posted my column last week (The Art of Forgetting) on its Facebook page with an introductory heading comprising these 30 words of the 900 I’d written. “I come from a Muslim family, and when I entered puberty I rejected Islam for telling me that menstruation …

A recent couple of conversations reminded me of how people find different ways to cope with trauma. The brain can introduce a kind of amnesia to block out emotionally shattering events. After a particularly loaded discussion, my friend said that she remembered so many painful things, that what surprised her …

“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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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. …

“[…] Our deepest issue is the inequality of our education system. Despite calls for reform, we’re stuck with a system that often doesn’t prepare young people for a changing world. “The prestige schools have better facilities, better managed teachers, and more opportunities compared to schools in rural or poor areas. …

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 …