DOMINICA

Kia Penso The darkest place I ever was at night was Dominica. It was so dark I was afraid to move for about five minutes. Finally I was able, by putting one foot forward and dragging the other to meet it very cautiously, to get out from under the trees to the lesser dark. I was standing in the driveway of a hotel/restaurant in the hills outside Roseau, I had walked up there alone from the guest house where I was staying, had my dinner, and was setting out to walk back to my guest house. Between me and the guest house was a little village and between me and the village was pitch black of trees overhanging the unlit road. Every spook and duppy and jumbie and haint and strange disembodied voice that I ever heard of in my childhood had jumped right out of storage in my brain and was waiting in the forest beyond those trees. I ran for that village like they were after me. Please note also that that was the only thing I feared walking alone in Dominica at night. It is a blessed place.