Field Trips The children had a field trip last week and were taken from their schools down to the beaches to learn about conservation. They were released like a kindle of kittens to tease the water’s edge, scattering across the sand while being reminded to keep...
The Old Man I have heard the old folks refer to the mountain as the Old Man and say that when he takes his hat off the night will be cold. When there is no clouds, and no haze, the air becomes crisp and there is a slight chill as the wind comes down from a high blue...
The sound of doors The sound of closing doors chimes the passage of time in an old house, it marks the weather of our day. When the library door slams shut it means the westerlies have risen, they are the winds that blew the sugar trade, and Europe and Africa to the...
Secondary School When I started secondary school in Nevis the advice I was given from my older sisters was to get there early on the first day to find a chair and a desk, or I’d spend the year without one, or the other, or neither. But I think there were enough to go...
Animal wisdom There are old Nevis tales about the antics of animals, how the goat and the monkey talk to each other; and so we create proverbs and sayings based on their antics as explanations for our own actions. We say things like “the monkey knows what tree to...
Reflections I saw so regularly an old man sitting by the roadside that I began to feel I knew him, though we never spoke. He sat there from morning, through midday sun and into the afternoon, somehow comfortable on stony soil, beneath a mango tree. He would raise a...
