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Surviving To Live — Chapter II

Annelise Lords
Dancing Elephants Press
4 min readJan 11, 2025

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Violence is a way of life in the ghetto; it’s like water, and we in the ghetto need it to survive!

Image by Annelise Lords
21 stories

Twenty Years Earlier

“Which school do you want to go to?” I asked Jackie and Debbie, sitting on the sidewalk in front of my yard on Hanover Street, watching the cars as they raced by. Hanover Street was a shortcut for most people who lived uptown and

worked downtown. It was a scorching hot but electrified Thursday evening, the third week of June 21, 1995, and the eve of the annual Common Entrance Examination results.

Jamaicans believe this determines the future of five and sixth-grade children attending primary schools. This year, twenty-five thousand children sat the Common Entrance Examination; only thirteen thousand spaces were available in high schools, according to an article in the Daily Gleaner.

Jason, my youngest brother, who taught me how to read, read the Gleaner and the Star every day, and he demanded that I do the same after Mr. Linny, our neighbor, finished reading it and discarded it.

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Dancing Elephants Press
Dancing Elephants Press

Published in Dancing Elephants Press

Let’s jump out of the box together. Supporting connection, positivity, joy, hope, caring for each other and the environment around us. New beginnings for this Universe and Humanity. Builds on providing emotional and mental support, welcome spirituality and open minds. Dance.

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