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"Through the chug and
churn of the train,

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I hear clacking cries from black
toucans with huge rainbow beaks

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and eerie howls from big hairy
monkeys with shaggy faces

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that almost look human, faces
with voices so challenging

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that every man on the
train starts howling, too."

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The Caribbean Islanders
not only had not

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been in the type of
immense tropical rainforest

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that you find in Central America
because the rainforest in Cuba

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and on all the islands had
been chopped down much earlier,

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centuries earlier,
but also, they

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hadn't encountered each other.

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They were separated by the sea.

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So Jamaicans didn't know
Cubans, and Jamaicans

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didn't know Barbadians.

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They were on separate islands.

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And I am always fascinated by
the places where cultures meet,

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but this is actually
two stories.

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The human voices alternate
with forest voices.

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I think of this book as
my personal love letter

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to the tropical rainforest.

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