I made a huge improvement to my kitchen here in Sherwood. I brought some LED lights to put under the cabinets. It improves the lighting situation exponentially. My Jamaican family, which consists of Bobo, Dimple and I guess Natural. (And probably Kumbo who seems to have come down from being “mad.”) My Jamaican family is really impressed by my smartness. I can tell they are. They discussed these lights quite a bit. A far cry from, “I thought white ladies only came here to get drunk.” (A comment by “Dotta” when she found I can bake bread.)

At first, I was going to let Dimple do the cooking. I was tired from that terrible trip and being tired impairs my self-confidence. But Dimple told me, “I love your cooking, Becky,” and my first attempt at recalling how to do stuff here met with acclaim. So I am back at it.

Bobo has arranged for a piece of land across the road to have a garden. Some precautions are in order because of the feral chickens who live their lives all over the place. There will be no growing of lettuce without some serious precautions. We are thinking of trapping some of these birds and cooping them up. Something to experiment with anyways. I guess when they stop laying you can just let them go.

We got rid of Black Boy, the dog. He sealed his doom by escaping when the gate was open and returning with a mouth full of chicken feathers. It starts with chickens and goats are next, Bobo ominously warns. I never liked that dog, anyway. He exuded baleful reproach. I am not crazy about Flexxie, either. I miss Josephine, the pit bull, who Bobo gave away when she repeatedly tried to kill Flexxie. I think she disliked Flexxie for a reason. I miss her. She was as good as having a gun in the house. Nobody was going to jump the wall with her around!

One of the masons who is working upstairs right now took Black Boy. This guy likes to “go a bush” and hunt coneys and wild boar and Black Boy, with his bad habits, will be just the thing. So Black Boy has got a job. Well, that is good! Dogs aren’t pets around here, they are staff, as my daughter once put it. I am less sentimental about animals than most white ladies. I didn’t live all those years in India for nothing!

I had a really good experience a few days ago. We were in a little lane where the old railway line used to be. It is “captured land” where a village has grown up. Bobo used to be there all the time when he lived that side. Everyone knew him and greeted him with enthusiasm. There was a bar right down on the beach with a big full moon shining in the water. A bunch of guys were playing dominoes as “Moomie,” the bar owner held court inside. An exceedingly pretty young woman with a cute gap between her two front teeth was sashaying around. She looked like she did advanced yoga, although that seems unlikely. But in general, everybody was exuding their super strong personalities all over the place. I don’t speak the language and I didn’t know anybody, but I wished I did.

Later, back up on the road, we sat with a young woman shop owner and a couple of other of Bobo’s old friends. The conversation turned to property line disputes, a subject I am familiar with from having lived in a village in India. I guess it is the same problem all over the world, but the properties in Goa, where I lived, could get awfully small. The chief of police at Calangute police station told me that the biggest cause of murders in Goa was property disputes.

I had been smoking a spliff and drinking a “hot beer,” (a warm Red Stripe) when suddenly I realized I could understand everything everyone was saying! Wow! It felt miraculous!

The same thing happened in Jamaica when I was a child. I couldn’t understand anything, until one day I just did. It happened again when I got thrown into a French speaking school as a teenager. At first, I couldn’t understand anything then suddenly comprehension opened like a flower. I thought this only happened to children. It reminded me of those geometrical pictures that were so popular for a while. When you first look at them they present a flat surface, but then something switches in your brain and a three dimensional picture emerges. I think the trick is to override the intellect, which of course smoking weed is good for. I am excited to go out and give it another whirl!

Things have lightened up a whole lot in Jamaica as far as THE PLAGUE. No more no-movement Sundays and the curfew was moved to ten PM which is not so bad. Christmas and New Years it will be 1 AM. You still have to wear a mask to go into stores in town, but you can tell that it is all a half-hearted sort of thing. Last Sunday, the Italian DJ who does “vinyl Sundays” got a permit to start his street party in Drapers back up. He plays old Jamaican favorites, and it was a lovely party. I got to dance which I have been missing during these whole sorry last two years. The beaches and river are not closed anymore. Latoya, who runs the bar we go to out in Long Bay told me that she almost went mad during the lockdown. That she has no income other than the bar and that the only thing that kept her sane was her little granddaughter. She said that there is no way Jamaicans are going to put up with another lockdown like that. I hope she is right.