People get about. The Caribbean, once a hell of Imperialism, mosquitos, slavery, sugar-cultivation, salt cod and death, is now of course the holiday-maker's playground. This week I read the opening of "A Small Place," and stopped because Jamaica Kincaid wanted to tell me how angry she is. I wasn't in the mood to listen. If I ever get to Antigua, I'll probably hear her.
The farthest I went yesterday was the birthday party of an amazingly beautiful lady from Jamaica, one which gave new meaning to the word "rapture"; two hundred people milled as if they were finally in the presence of a deity, chewing her jerk chicken and drinking her Red Stripe beer.
"Jerk" is a Quechua word for dried meat, hence "jerky." Quechua is the pre-Incan language of places in the south of South America, Peru for example.
I must go. David Ritchie, Portland, Oregon ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
