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Vivienne Plumb A Letter from my Daughter The trees are tall here, and everything grows fast in the hot sun and heavy rain. The wet has come, and butterflies are the size of small birds. There are ticks and leeches, enormous mosquitoes, spiders, flies, thick striped snakes and green ants, and they all bite. The rainforest can be dark at night. And these mountains are as green as their ferny gullies. Sometimes the clouds engulf a whole mountain top. The beaches have marvellous shells and the sand lies silky and pure white. You can pick coconuts, you can pick as many as you like, and then hollow out the smooth brown husks to use for bowls. I have seen parrots, fruit bats, black water snakes and tree rats. Mangoes, bananas and pawpaws are growing wild. During the wet, the sky becomes deep violet and then next minute the rain arrives in sheets. Water floods the bridges and roads, and we cannot reach Cairns. Because of the rain, local houses are built on stilts, but below the ridge down in the Commune we live in old cars, in yellow bamboo huts, or in treehouses under plastic. I often walk along the railway tracks and over the railway bridges. There are big lemon trees by the tracks further up (good for tropical ulcers). I do not like the cane toads. And now finally I must finish this letter, but know that my spirit astral travels at night, and therefore I am nearer you more than ever before. Always OM, your daughter Jane, who has now been renamed Yasmeen Shima Mogra Ashanti Cloud Burst.
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