Peering out through a corner of the window curtain, I saw it was early as the sun was only casting an orangish-red glow in the Eastern sky and mere silhouettes of the trees outside were becoming visible. I dressed and washed up before leaving my room only to find everyone else still sleeping and the house dark so I retrieved my little flashlight and made my way to my chair on the verandah to experience the beginning of my first day at this home in Jamaica.
I checked the clock on my phone, and it was 6:30am and I was soon to learn that this house’s occupants rarely rise before 8:30am so I had a couple of hours to myself. The first thing I really noticed was all the people walking down the road to a standpipe with empty water containers and coming back lugging full ones and a few others going to the house under construction next door to get their containers filled. I was soon to learn that this house and the one under construction next door were the only two houses in the neighborhood that paid for piped in water. The rest either couldn’t afford the bill or found the hassle and exercise a better trade-off than paying one.
The water and the electric current’s absence at times was a continuing theme throughout my stay. I was soon to learn that the water came from a spring down by the river and the pump depended on the current to operate as there was no backup generator. Thus, no current meant no water and short power outages were frequent and would not interrupt the water but longer ones that happened every day or two would and that would also cause the standpipe water to cease flowing. Once the current was gone for 14 straight hours and the freezer full of expensive meat was in peril of being food for the dogs. Catching rainwater for bathing and flushing the toilet was a necessity during these longer stretches. Sometimes, if it were in the day, we went to the river to bathe coupled often with the therapy sessions.
Behind the two doors from the verandah, I could hear my caretaker stirring from her bed and behind the main house door someone else in the kitchen making breakfast. Many mornings followed this timeline throughout my stay and before long a rhythm developed that was calming and predictable which suited me just fine.
