Gray GBS3299 Blogs

 This story is very different from the other short stories that we have read. Rosena on the Mountain  is a short story about a young Haitian boy who wants to join the sainthood. He grew up from nothing in the slums of his town. He feels that God has to lead him to become closer to him. "I felt destined to rise at two o'clock each morning of my life and to utter only three words a week" (Rosena on the Mountain, René Despestre). The boy went to the mountains to start his journey in sainthood. There he met a girl that helps with the sainthood that is called Rosena. She would help in the kitchen, making food, and gathering water.  Rosena has her eye on the boy and the boy starts to feel a certain way with Rosena. The boy knows that he cannot sin with Rosena because it does against her beliefs. The temptation becomes too strong and Rosena and the boy sin together. The boy is in love but is distraught at the same time because he has gone against everything that he has lear...

  Haiti has over eight million people in the country with a life expectancy of fifty years, seventy percent of the population below the poverty line, and sixty-five percent of the population can read. This is crazy to think about that in today’s age a county can fall behind so much with the rest of society. In 1994 the country finally instilled a democratic institution to allow the country to hopefully thrive in the near future. The leaders of Haiti understand that Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will Haiti. They understand it is going to take time to fix the country, but they know they are moving in the correct direction. There is now hope in the people of Haiti, hope of the people and of the national level. Some people of Haiti believe that the political leaders enjoy the power they have and do not want to give up that power. So, they decide to stay in power and people in Haiti want them out of power so the country can move forwards and be given more freedoms. The birthpl...

 The short story The Doors Open at Three  is a story about a man who doesn't want to be lonely without a female companion. It starts at a funeral where it is down pouring outside while everyone is trying to fit inside the church. That is when he sees a woman in her dress. "Then I saw her! Clearly defined against the soaked wall, her feet making tiny timid twists in the rain, visibly vexed, there she was." (G. Cabrera Infante, The Doors Open at Three). He said that he feels like he was struck by a silent lighten bolt. He feels a jolt of energy and of emotion towards this girl. The girl then disappeared and she was gone. He thought he saw her again walking towards him, but then a man came up behind her and they then went away. This most likely hurt the narrator. You could maybe even say that it felt like death to him. He then saw another girl while studying at the library. He decided to draw a self-portrait of her to show her how beautiful she was. "You're being to...

 In the short story of Journey to the Seed  by Alejo Carpentier, the story was about a man named Marcial. It starts at the end of his life while he is on his death bed. "Don Marcial, Marquis of Capellanías lay on his deathbed, his breast clad with metal, and with an escort of four candles with long beards of melted wax" (Alejo Carpentier, Journey to the Seed). The story travels backward from his deathbed to when he was younger and born. This story was confusing at first to understand, but once you understood the order of the story it made much more sense. It was interesting to see a story written this way because it gave the reader a new and different perspective of your life. It discusses the parties and dances with the girls he had, and his relationship with his wife. It also talks about how he had to sell everything and his social class drops as well. It was interesting to read what he did in the past after you already read about how he turned out. The quote "The worl...

  On the third and last part of the journey, they start off their trip to Nicaragua. Nicaragua used to be a Spanish colony. The surrounding areas around Nicaragua used to be all British controlled colonies, so many of the locals speak English. Many of the small local villages are made up of part Creo and former slaves that were brought here from the British. Many of the small villages rely on fishing to eat and make a living. Fishing is a way of life in these small villages, but it is a life and area they want to preserve. “During the last 500 years, the British, Spanish, Dutch, French, and Americans have all dreamt to try to join the two oceans through Nicaragua. There have been more than 70 attempts, but they have all failed” (Episode 3, Matt Brandon). I feel like that could destroy a large part of the natural ecosystem in Nicaragua. This would most likely destroy hundreds of miles of rain forest and villages along the way. In this case, though, the risk of this large engineering...

  The island of Barbados is on the eastern edge of the Caribbean. Dotted along the Barbados coast on the glorious beach are fabulous villas. This is the part of the Caribbean for the rich and the famous. Tourism is the main way of income in Barbados. Many wealthy people enjoy traveling and staying in Barbados. Many of the local people who live full time on the island are hard to find. There has been such an influx in wealthy people moving to Barbados that many of the locals are being pushed out by property developers and other real estate investors. The most beautiful beaches in Barbados used to be swampy mangroves and only the poorest people were able to afford them. Now it is some of the most expensive real estate in the world. People were offered over eight million dollars for the land alone for a spot on this beautiful beach. That is crazy to think that some people still will not leave their home for that amount of money. It goes to show how special the island and beaches must ...

  The Caribbean Sea is a large vast sea with plentiful island spotted all throughout it. Christopher Columbus first landed on the island of Hispaniola in the year 1492. It was Christopher Columbus’ brother who was the first one who founded the first European city here. The city of Santo Domingo which is now the capital of the Dominican Republic. It is here in Santo Domingo is where European settlement in the Americas first started. “This was the first Spanish city in the Americas. It was home to the first European Cathedral, university, and monastery in the new world” (Caribbean with Simon Reeve: Part 1). It was from Santo Domingo that the Europeans set off to conquer the rest of the surrounding islands in the Caribbean. Today in the Dominican Republican, they have one of the fastest-growing economic growth in the region. The Dominican Republic is where most people go on vacation in the Caribbean. Over ten million people live in the Dominican Republic with over five million tourist...

 Triumph  is a short story about women in Trinidad. It story discussed three main women who were Mamitz, Celestine, and Irene. These women lived in the barrack yards. This was a place of lower-class people in society. "A narrow gateway leading into a fairly big yard, on either side of which runs long, low buildings, consisting of anything from four to eighteen rooms, each about twelve feet square. In these lived the porters, the prostitutes, catermen, washerwomen, and domestic servants of the city" (C.L.R James, Triumph). The women in this society were very oppressed and given the jobs that nobody wanted to do. The women in the story have to rely on men in order to stay afloat within their society. The women in the story would have been better off all staying together instead of going against each other in certain parts. The women would be stronger together and not have to rely so much on the men in society if the women worked together. Mamitz is almost like an instigator in ...

The short story of  Some People are Meant to be Alone  is about a man called Uncle Arthur. Uncle Arther lives up on the hill in his old run-down house. "No, it was the fact that he lived all alone; alone in the old, dilapidated house on the hill, a house we could see when the canes were cut, a house that loomed gaunt and cockeyed against the brooding background of the two countable isolation" (Frank Collymore, Some People are Meant to Live Alone). The main character Bill decided to go up to Uncle Arthurs's house to find out why his mother use to say he was so horrible to be with. That is why nobody ever wants to be around him and why he lives alone. Bill knocked on the door and Arthur invited him upstairs to talk. Arther told Bill a story about a man that he once knew by the name of Jones. Jones was once married for a few years and hated every second of it. "Jones, when the story begins, had been married four or five years and he was desperately unhappy. His wife was...

  The documentary talks about the islands of St. Lucia, Martinique, and Montserrat in the Caribbean. The video discusses the rich hybrid cultures of English, African, and French. The guide shows more of the island than just the tourist spots. She shows the Castries market which displays all the rich food and life on and around the island in the sea. The market in Castries St. Lucia is over 100 years old. “Here you can find freshly picked bananas, today's catch, local spices, and handmade crafts. It is the perfect play to see what the Caribbean has to offer” (The Caribbean Islands: Globe Trekker). In these markets, you can really see the culture that is displayed on the island. With all of their unique foods, spices, and handcrafted items you can really see how different their culture is from others around the world. Most of the people on the island are of African descent since the island had a large number of slaves for the sugar cane plantations. It has been approximated that over...

Pioneers, Oh, Pioneers is a short story about a man named Ramage. In the beginning, Ramage was a well-liked man who arrived on the island two years ago. He was well dressed in a white suit, red cummerbund, and solar topee. He was a very well respected and sought after man. "Miss Lambton, who had been a fellow passenger from Barbados, reported that he was certainly a gentleman and also a king among men when it came to looks" (Jean Rhys, Pioneers, Oh, Pioneers). Ramage said that he came to the island with the intent to by an Estate that was as remote as possible. Ramage wanted to be far away from everyone for some reason. Ramage ended up buying an older Spanish Castle. Ramage married a colored girl named Isla. Then things started to get very strange. People have seen Ramage and his wife lying naked on the Verandah in the hammock. This was in plain view of other people.  Ramage was starting to become a very unpopular person in the town. Everyone started to talk about the odd thi...

  The History of Mary Prince  is a writing about a slave who was born in 1788 in Brackish Pond Bermuda. Her mother was a slave and her father was a shipbuilder. Mary first was given as a gift to Darrel Williams who he gave to his granddaughter. Mary was the childhood friend of the granddaughter until she was twelve years old. Prince was then given to a neighboring household as a nurse. It is interesting to see how often the owners of Mary moved her around. By the age of twelve, she has already been to three different homes. He said that the happiest time of her life was in early childhood. This was a time when she was too young to understand how she was a slave. Prince was sold a few more times and eventually joined the Moravian Church in Antigua. At the church, she would meet her future husband who was a free carpenter whose name was Daniel James. She married Daniel in December of 1826 and followed him to England in 1828. When she arrived in England, she was technically a fre...