What the diaspora forgets to pack
A reader writes: I left Pòtoprens as a child. Where do I begin?
You begin the way everyone does who is coming back — not with a plant, but with a smell. The kitchen your grandmother kept. The leaf she crushed between two fingers and held to your face.
Knowledge here is returned, not accessed. Start with the names: the Kreyòl first, then the French, then the English, because that is the order the memory lives in. Pòtoprens is listed first for the same reason.
Then pick one plant your family knew and stay with it a while. Depth is a better teacher than breadth. The archive is complete and open — you are not sampling something withheld; you are walking your own street.