Human Flower Project

Monday, September 28, 2009

A Legacy of Jamaican Fruits

Ackee and breadfruit send local ecologist Georgia Silvera Seamans up to the Jamaican highlands and three generations back in time. Thank you, Georgia and Yvonne.

Cacao on the branch in Jamaica; the seeds make cocoa and chocolate.
Photo: Yvonne Silvera

By Georgia Silvera Seamans

I never knew my mother’s maternal grandmother; Beatrice Baxter (“Auntie B”) died before I was born.  My mother’s stories presented a picture of a generous woman, with her love, time, and her home.  Though I was born and raised, until I was 13 years old, in Jamaica, I never saw my great-grandmother’s house.  My mum was raised in “the country” of Clarendon Parish but raised her children in a suburban development in St. Catherine Parish.  Perhaps she thought we could not make the hike up (or hoof it up like the goats) the hill to my grandmother’s house.  (I should ask.)

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