The Five Senses

Sight	“But then the peasants live in the valleys and mountain villages amid flamboyants, poinsettias, azaleas, ficus, eucalyptus, and magnolias - their colors raging over the countryside and blending roads into hills, hills into forests” (10) “Their bare peaks shone in the bright light of the noonday sun” (12) “They resembled carvings she had once seen in a marketplace - beautiful, mahogany brown skin stretched over broad backs, strongly muscled thighs and buttocks glistening with sweat through the opening of their tattered clothes, hats pulled low over their brows to protect their heads. “(18) “She had the smoothest skin, the peasant girl. Black. Silk at the calves, satin on her thighs, changing to a velvet blackness as it spread up her shoulders, her neck, her face.” (21) “Or why she had captured the beautiful silver and blue papillon that had glowed in the setting sun, just as the car had glowed silver in the night?” (33)
Sound	“She listened to the wind, the rain, the and the thunder outside, alert for other signs of danger” (45) “With our drums, our songs, we gave her thanks” (11) “She strained, listening to the faded sounds of the engine” (14) “They worked in silence, raking through the dry earth…” (15) “As she listened to the camionnettes passing on the road, to the croaking frogs, the rasping crickets, and the hooting birds in the woods…” (21)
Smell	“Then Madame Bosante, the healer, who grew herbs at the foot of the mountain…” (35) “She rubbed his limbs with castor oil…” (38) “The air was wet, even the air in the cabin” (43) “A smell of death invaded the cabin through his festering sores” (44) “On the fourth day of the storm, an old woman, weakened by the smell of rotting flesh…” (44)
Taste	“Puny? True. Dry? True. But during these hard times when peasants were reduced to eating only millet or cornbread cereal, even vegetables of poor quality were better than none at all” (15) “She dipped a gourdful and took it over to Mama Euralie. The old women drank some. The peasant girl drank the rest.” (15) “She knew that Mama Euralie and Tonton Julian were having tea.” (25) “She brewed teas to stop his bleeding from the inside…” (35) “She forced tea past his teeth…” (38)
Touch	“It ran through his fingers like sand” (13) “Then he walked toward his old mule tied to the post behind their mud hut, touching the peasant girl gently on her head as he passed” (14) “Squinting from the glare of the midday sun, which reached through her thick, crisp hair to burn her scalp, the peasant girl walked with her toes curled away from the hot earth over to the bucket of water in the shade of a nearby tree” (15) “... she lay at the sandy bottom, letting the water rush to thicken her hair and cool her neck. The water massaged her neck, her body, her tired feet.” (21) “She went up to the car and touched it. She, Desiree Dieu Donne, touching a car! It was the first she had ever touched” (29)