Regional students attending UWI spend about 30 weeks away from home each year. During that time, some are unable to participate in their national celebrations at home, but that has also allowed students to garner a greater appreciation of their culture and nationhood here in the twin island republic.
In February, three of the national associations on campus managed to do just that. There was a Grenada Week, a Guyana Week and a Saint Lucia Month, where all festivities allowed for students of each country to commemorate their country’s national celebrations while inviting their larger Caribbean family to participate.
“At home, you take these celebrations for granted because it’s always there, but here (in Trinidad and Tobago), you realise just how important it is, and just how much they are part of you,” says Atonia Andall, the President of the Grenadian Students Association (GSA).
Andall, a third-year student, related that being away from home, especially when these momentous occasions are being observed, can make you feel misplaced and sometimes even frustrated.
There is more that binds people to their culture than just being in the space where that culture exists. Andall also stressed that the GSA continues to endeavour to make all the Grenadians at UWI St Augustine feel that sense of belonging.
This year’s Grenada Week was a five-day feature of “all things nice from the Island of Spice” from February 2 to 7, the last day being the 46th anniversary of Grenada’s Independence.
Sharing Andall’s sentiments was another Grenadian student, Akino Romain who highlighted that he felt more ‘Grenadian’ while in Trinidad and Tobago because, at The UWI, there is a litany of cultures and nationalities coexisting, in contrast to at home where everyone is, well, Grenadian. As such, he developed a deeper sense of pride in his Grenadian identity.
For him, the cultural sharing that GSA provides is also important. They sensitise the Campus community as to why the Grenadians celebrate in the way they do.
The Old Yard may be a vehicle, as Tamara says, to change the general mind set with regard to the meaning and nature of Carnival. But it is through festivals like Carnival that we come to an understanding of the cultural landscape of Trinidad and Tobago.
Over in Guyana, the country celebrated its Republic Jubilee, a grand celebration of the 50th anniversary of Guyana becoming a Cooperative Republic, on February 23. At The UWI St Augustine, Guyana Week was organised by the Guyana Students’ Association of Trinidad and Tobago (GuySATT).
Much like the GSA, this week of activities enabled the Guyanese members of the student population to not miss out on the festivities that would be overtaking Guyana and the country’s diaspora at that time. Whether it was dressing up in Guyanese apparel, or playing Guyanese games on the Campus’s Learning Resource Centre greens after ‘lashing’ a hot plate of cook-up rice, GuySATT’s President Felicia Collins posited that these small activities were done to make the Guyanese proud of where they came from and, indeed, they achieved just that.
“GuySATT really gave us that opportunity to feel like we were part of Guyana’s 50th Republic Anniversary and weren’t missing anything from home,” Dinesa Campbell, a third-year Guyanese student remarked.
Beyond the week of events organised by GSA and GuySATT, the Saint Lucian Students’ Association of Trinidad and Tobago (LuSATT) spread their activities out across the entire month of February. The culmination of this was on February 22, when the Lucians celebrated their 41st Independence anniversary.
Lincoln Francis, a second-year student from Saint Lucia shared that, “Whenever we have limes and meetups with the other Lucians, it feels all the more patriotic.”
Kem Immanuel, LuSATT’s President, emphasised that the Lucian celebration has a two-fold purpose. “It helps not only with our feelings of homesickness or being left out, but it also brings awareness to Saint Lucia, what we celebrate and what we stand for,” she said.
Immanuel shared her hope that soon more of the Campus community would celebrate these observances and seek to advance the regional integration agenda alongside LuSATT and the other national associations After all, The UWI is the region’s university.
