The Conscience Collective Gift Guide The Globetrotter's Edition: Issue 3 | Page 28

Latin America!

The Caribbean!

Images of glistening bodies sleepily resting in hammocks. A warm breeze knocks them back in their blissful coma. The crescendo of sounds coming from minibuses and market vendors shouting sweet songs of slander and solicitation. This is my childhood. These were memories of a place still hard to conquer. In it were gems of only people from the region would understand.

Today, these gems have transcended into more translatable manifestations. From Peru's many cooperatives which empower women to Brazil's innovative technology in sustainable textile fabrication -- fish skin which is now being used to treat burn victims.

Needless to say, this is my region. My home! And there are so many amazing ethical gifts to be found, once explored.

LATIN AMERICA + THE CARIBBEAN

There runs a dream of perished Dutch plantations

in these Guiana rivers to the sea

Black waters rustling through vegetation

That towers and tangles banks, run silently

Over lost stellings where the craft once rode

Easy before trim dwellings in the sun

And fields of indigo would float out broad

To lose the eye right on the horizon

These rivers know that strong and quiet men

Drove back a jungle, gave Guiana root

Against the shock of circumstance, and then

History moved down river, leaving free

The forest to creep back, foot by quiet foot

And overhang black waters to the sea

There runs a dream, A.J. Seymour

Seafrina by Maryam Patel

Made in Barbados