Jamaica

1990 -- We didn't go to the capital of Kingston, here—instead we went to a town on the other side of the country. It is deservedly known as a violent place -- while we were there we heard of a number of rather garish murders.

In one of the little bookstores that my mother dragged me to, looking for a mathematics textbook that was sufficiently advanced to hold my interest (I was once a genius at mathematics), we made friends with some locals.

The couple were mixed race—white woman, black man. It stood out in my mind as interesting, as I hadn't met a couple in that combination before. I'd known the other way around; on yachts, it is fairly common for a man to pick up a local woman and take her around, him being white.

They owned a banana plantation in addition to that little bookstore, and we were invited to go up there. We went, and my brother and I had fun exploring, though removing the ticks that we found once back on the yacht was anything but. The first time that I'd had them, and the last so far. The sad thing is, years later, we found out that the man had been killed by his wife—and with a machete. Not pretty. It was local custom to have machetes, because of the plantations around there. It was a bit strange at first, seeing people wander around with those huge blades. While we didn't become totally accustomed to it, we certainly didn't stare after the first or so.