Laventile (Love Until) - FINAL 

Shaking her head, Ma got up slowly and went inside, leaving me alone with the sound of croaking frogs, buzzing mosquitoes and melancholy thoughts. This was not the Laventille of my childhood. Young boys who once sat in the same class together, who played pitch and rounders in the school yard together, now in opposing gangs, ‘warring’ each other. And, young girls think they’re worth no more than ‘ah two piece an fries’.  It seems they have forgotten that their fathers scorched melody from old rusty oil drum. Ma was right, this place had changed.

That night, a lingering thought lulled me to sleep.………….“What was there left to love?”

The following morning the gentle glow of the sun blew kisses through laced curtains, landing on my forehead, nudging me awake. I yawned, got out of bed, and opened my bedroom window.

“Morning Aunty Carlene” squealed a tiny voice.

“Who said that?”

“Me”

“Me……. Who?”

“Me……Me, Aunty Carlene”

“Or……. Franny!”

“Yes Aunty Carlene……Me”

Franny was my neighbour’s three year old granddaughter. Too short to see over the banister, every morning she would peep through the fancy bricks of their veranda waiting to see my bedroom window open for us to play this game.

“Morning Ms. Vergie”

“Morning Carlene. Look ah leave a hand of fig for granny on the back step.”

“Alright, thanks Ms. Vergie. I will go for it now. Bye Franny”

“Bye Aunty Carlene”

Waving, I smiled, drew back the curtains then went to the back of the house. Just as I stooped to pick up the figs, I heard a rustle in the bushes. Tracing the sound, I was charmed to see a large iguana carefully making its way up the bark of an ancient bacano tree. It climbed to the top of this never ending tree, scurried across a branch and stood surveying its surrounding. I knew then, as I admired my green friend with the hand of green figs in my hand, that I would love this place called Laventille until it learned to love itself again.