The last piece that I wrote was about how I met Bobo for the first time on the verandah of Rev and Rini’s guest house in Port Antonio. I felt his bright eyes on me, but he got really interested when I passed around my Ipad with pictures of my artwork. He lost no time in proposing we form a collaboration and a relationship too. I was very skeptical. I told him I was lousy at business and that I was an old lady and way too old for him. “Yes, but you are a sexy old lady,” he replied. “You are good for me.” This struck me as an honest and practical assessment of the situation.

I hesitated, but he pursued his suit with enthusiasm over the course of the next few days. Finally, I told myself that I would be crazy to turn this guy down. I had been alone for the last five years. So far, I had only considered highly educated white men my own age. This category of men had not exactly been beating a path to my door. “Why would you want one of THOSE? “asked a 95 year-old lady at the Y when I told her the story, “You’ll just wind up taking care of him.”

So we got together. Rini was pissed off that he was sleeping in my room. (She was pissed that he was hanging out with Rev, too.) She thought he was taking advantage of me for sure. Rev was delighted. We got a lot of comments around town. Mostly congratulations and advice like “You take care of him and he will take care of you!"

Bobo crocheting a Rasta cap.

Family is hugely important in Jamaican culture. Bobo’s friends had families to help them. Bobo had nothing, he was fostered out to various people during his childhood. He was rarely sent to school but made to go out and do agricultural work, instead. Sometimes he collected bottles to pay fees for the little education he was able to get. As an adult he worked as a construction worker, which meant ten-hour days in “de red sun” to earn $2,000 Jamaican.. Along the way he had learned how to crochet Rasta caps and make other handicrafts. This was a big breakthrough for him and he opened a stall in the covered market in the town. He could have wound up a “teef.” Many young men in his situation did. Everything he accomplished he had to do on his own.

Jeffery in the treehouse

This was not the first time a friend’s girlfriend tried to chase Bobo away. Previous to being unpopular with Rini, he had teamed up with another friend to build a treehouse in a big breadfruit tree on the friend’s property. You had to climb up a couple of ladders and at the top was a platform that swayed in the wind with a beautiful view of the bay. The plan was to use the place for the tourist business but the friend acquired a girlfriend who drove Bobo away. Now he had a second girlfriend with the same mission in mind.

The tree house from the “yaad.”

I had an Ipad I had got for Jeff thinking he could use it to run his lighting business. In fact he couldn’t even manage to turn it off or on. When I went back to Vermont, I Fedexed this to Bobo so we could communicate by Facetime. He would go into town in the evening and sit in the street outside a place with wifi. Friends passing by would greet me, “Hello moomie” or most notably, “Mi wish mi could fine a sweet American gyal wid a likkle money in de bank.” Gales of laughter all around!

So that is how our first year together transpired. I was in Vermont a lot and he was in Porti. I thought I had got together with a construction worker with a skill for crocheting. I had no idea what a mensch he would turn out to be.