As we bounced along, searching for the road, we could see in the distance behind the rounded hills the darkened region of navy-blue mountains that awaited us. This was to be our longest and most harrowing day on the border. It was slow going as we crept up the mountains. It appeared as if no one had navigated this stretch of road in a long time in any kind of vehicle. As we progressed, we had to pause more and more as our path was strewn with fallen trees and boulders. Graham had written about priests and their weaknesses, helplessness and human fragility, but here he had to join forces with a priest to remove obstacles from our common path. When he was brushing off the dirt from his road work, I asked him whether he would prefer to drive. ‘No, no, I am quite content not to,’ he replied. This section of the border needed no international markers. The Haitian side was an ecological disaster. It was all rock. Haitian peasants in the mountain regions are lucky to grow a few strands of corn on the steepest peaks where some soil may remain, but, largely because of deforestation, when the rains come tons of remaining topsoil cascade down the mountains into the sea.
What do You think about The Seeds Of Fiction (2012)?
