:“Bas-peu-de-chose” -
To me, that neighborhood was truly paradise, but I did not realize it until we moved out.--


That period described in the precedent chapter was a decisive phase in my life. I believe it helped me become in part the person I am today, in some regards. The quarter where I lived at the time was a living school where you learn by paradigms and, sometimes, by incidents. The environment within and around the neighborhood was a social amalgam that appeared incongruous from the outside world and was in fact a vivid picture when you are part of it.

When I first moved to that neighborhood called Morne à Turf, I felt a little depressed, not only did I miss my former friends, but I also felt like a bird in a cage. I missed the front yard where I used to play and even more the beautiful neighborhood park called “Place Jeremie”. I spent weeks going back to my old neighborhood called Bas-peu-de-chose by myself, and spent a lot of time there because I had family still living in the area. Eventually my mom said no more.

Bas-peu-de-chose was probably the best neighborhood I ever lived in my entire life. I read somewhere that the term “Bas-peu-de-chose” comes from the fact that the district started to develop just below the villa “Peu de chose”, actual Cordasco house in Pacot. The zone was very quiet, with lots of trees. Almost every home had two yards with a garden in the front and in the gardens it was quite common to have fruit trees. In my front yard there were some juicy cherry trees at the entrance on the right and on the left there were two varieties of pomegranates (grenades) trees, some seasonal sugar canes and corns in the far right, and a dark topical fruit called “sapotilles”. In the back yard there were different nut trees, some cherry trees and some tropical spinach plants. On the left side of the front yard, we had a breadfruit (arbre veritable) tree and there was another huge breadfruit tree on the right side of the house; actually that tree was on the neighbor’s yard but half of the branches were extended over the corridor and the roof of my house. Most people had two breadfruit trees and some coconuts in their yards. My neighborhood was a big farm with streets and beautiful homes with all kind of fruits trees. Consequently, if you did not have a plant chances are your neighbors had it. As the matter fact my neighbor on the right had several huge grape trees that covered her driveway and my neighbor on the left had an orange tree that no one else had. We also had some tea plants in our yard that none of our neighbors had on their properties . The good part about having all those different trees in the neighborhood was that some of us shared what we had.

With so many trees in the neighborhood I used to see all kinds of birds on the branches year round. It was a beautiful thing to see them eating from the wet grass in the morning as I am leaving for school. To me, that area was truly paradise, but I did not realize it until we moved. In fact, I did not live in Bas-peu-de-chose for too long. my family spent probably 4 years in that neighborhood, but it felt like I was there for four decades.

The area was a high middle class locality at that time. My mom was a proletarian, she got the apartment there because of some circumstantial events. The owner of the house had to rent it to my aunt because he took voluntary exile to a foreign country. My aunt passed the house to my mom when she left for the United States. I was very young. Even then I knew I was different from the other neighborhood kids, but I did not understand why until years later. The people who lived on my block were no ordinary people. There were only 6 or 7 homes on my side of the block. On average, a long block like that would have twice the number of houses. On the right corner of the block, on my side of the street, lived a former French priest who lived with his family. He invested his money in transportation, having several trucks that transported merchandise from the countryside to the capital while the other portion of his trucks was used in construction. Next to the French Priest lived a cousin of the former first lady of the country and the mother of the president at that time. She was not married and had no kids but lived with extended family members. My home was next; that’s the third house, which we shared with another family because we could not afford such a big home. After our house lived a colonel of the Army that I rarely saw. You never knew whether he was in the back of the tinted windows official car driven by a soldier. He had some beautiful daughters; maybe three, I used to see them while they were going to school in another official car driven by a different soldier. Sometimes I would hear them signing happily in their yard, while they are playing the latest records, but I could not see inside the hidden yard even when the driveway gates were wide open. Next to this family lived a doctor and his family. I can’t remember the exact profile, but their home wasn’t as beautiful as the others, from the outside. The people in the last home on the block I didn't know who they were, besides the fact that they were mistreating the boy they had at their service. He used to come eat with us from times to times because they would not feed him properly.

Behind my house lived a widow, her husband was a big opponent of the government and was killed by its militia. Her house looked like an abandoned 17th century castle. Across the street were some famous figures. The lady at the corner was a widow of a minister of the former government who was assassinated in jail by some people working for the new government. She had two daughters in their late teens. I heard that lady had the gift to receive messages from God, other people believed she became crazy after the death of her husband. The house adjacent to theirs was own by a retired minister of the government. I had few personal contacts with those persons because my mom did not allow us to go to other people homes, except for the lady on the right who had her godson, also her nephew, who was about my age living with her. Sometimes, the kid would beg my mom to let me go play with him.

On the day I heard we had to vacate the house, I was in shock. The other family had already moved out first, fortunately mom was given a little more time to find another place. I did not want to go anywhere else and my brother felt the same way. I was very upset and I did not understand what was happening or why. My mom is from that old school system that believes you do not tell kids about your financial business. The day I left the “Ruelle Cadet Jeremie” was a very sad day for me and closed a happy chapter of my childhood.