Thanks for the good wishes and prayers...Goldilocks, Rambo and Jamaica Miss.
I meant to add this on the other post as it helps to set the stage for the visit to come.

Respect

Although I have traveled, lived and visited all over Jamaica at various times over these past almost 3 decades, a few places have captured my heart in such a way that I am inexplicably drawn to them like a moth to a candle’s flame. This journey is not about the past as that I have lived and at times barely survived. No, this is about the present and the future. It’s a future that I have seen a million times in flashes of dreams and now I want to fashion them into a livable version of those fantasies.

My dearest and closest friend lives in Jamaica and, more exactly, in Accompong Town. We have traveled together; laughed together and (at times) even shed a few tears together. We were thrown together first by purpose and then by choice. We first met when the Colonel of the Accompong Maroons, Martin Luther Wright (deceased) placed this wide-eyed “intruder” into his protective custody as I ventured into an area of Jamaica where you needed permission to enter. Over the years, he has become a brother and a teacher while I have been eager to study and follow him as he led by example.

A couple of years back, I had to make a decision on how and where I wanted to live my golden years of retirement. Was I going to resign myself to living those years here in So. Florida being cared for at an Assisted Living Facility or was I going to take control of my life and live in Jamaica. I am a realist and know that Jamaica can be difficult at times and that sometimes there is a real advantage to living in the US especially for health care reasons. That is why I decided to pursue a “6-month here and 6-month there” approach to my plan. While I was working on getting my health together, I was also working on a place to live that wouldn’t take all the Social Security payments I get each month.

Under Marshall’s guidance, as his home that was destroyed by sliding down a hillside after Hurricane Ivan, it has slowly been resurrected into a downstairs floor where I would have a room for as long as I needed it and an upstairs floor with 2 bedrooms, adjoining bathroom, kitchen and a living room. We collaborated on what to call the house and we came up with “Da Kindah” which means “One Family” which we have become as friends and is also what the Maroons call the great mango tree where Cudjoe assembled his people.

It is from this backdrop that I have purchased my ticket.