Smutty talk, plantains, Jamaicans, and a Buddhist monk: Bee, like Ms. Manette, recalls us to life..

Unsure where to start. Except that I have been far. Never thought I would end up here.

Highlight: Sitting in a Jamaican restaurant listening to the Jamaican chef, a large, beautiful, freckled woman, asking the Buddhist monk about sex.

No. Really.

She asked about his urges.

His answer in very very very broken English...after he chokes on his cup of ginger tea: "Morality".

The monk, in his long burgundy gown, stands talking to the chef for a while. We all stop and listen.

"If you haven't had alcohol, you won't want to have it. If you haven't had sex, you will not want to have."

"But it is like...when you wake up in the middle of the night...you are hungry...for one very big... meal", says the chef.

Our Buddhist monk turns pink as he laughs. He says he has the urges. But it is about self-control.

He sees the humour.

I am not sure if the humour is in the Buddhist talking to all six of us Africans/Jamaicans about his non-existent sex life. Or in our cornering this man of faith - cloak and all - and making him explain such intimate matters in his very very broken English. As we eat plantains.

He tells us he is the last of his lineage. He will have no children...as his grabs his groin to further emphasise his point.

I'm sitting on an orange stool, plantain in hand, staring at a Buddhist monk grabbing his groin at me.

Life. I kiss it tenderly with wind chapped lips. It's winter again.

Lowlight: Pictures of my dead brother online. The last of his lineage. He will have no children. Stories of the fire in my heart, my country, burning - a few weeks old but nonetheless speaking of a murmuring violence. False hope of a resolution.

Life. I hold it closely, as the wind blows away my hot, salty tears.