After the kitchen, the verandah is the most important part of any Jamaican household.

Its where hair is braided in a million different intricate patterns. Meals are eaten, beer and tea is drunk, the crime in Kingston is examined and discussed with increasing incredulity and indignation. Passers-by are called to and later mercilessly dissected. Dominoes are slammed.

But mostly, a verandah is for that great Jamaican past-time: sitting. Jamaicans can SIT. Alone or with company, and it’s not unusual for four or five persons to sit quietly with little more then a “eh eh” now and then. Everyone will nod,a true a true, and then go back to looking at the road.

A verandah is also a good place to eat jackfruit. Sister Betty loves jackfruit, and I can smell it sitting on the counter long before I reach the kitchen.

So many tropical fruits look as though they belong to an alien planet, and jackfruit is no exception. They can be huge, 10′s of pounds sometimes, and their skin is like an armadillos’, thick and nubbly. On the tree, their size and texture resemble enormous green wasps nests. The inside is even stranger- full of rubbery, bright yellow pods and large round seeds.

I have a hard time eating jackfruit, not because of the taste- which is very sweet, and at once very much its own, and also exactly like banana runts- but because of the smell. Jackfruit has a sickly, pungent scent. It smells like sex and death,and also vaguely plastic-y. It helps to breathe through your mouth when you eat it.

So I never buy it, but Sister Betty loves it, and today after our dinner, we sat side by side on our verandah, eating jackfruit and throwing the seeds into the hibiscus bush. Not talking too much. Just popping the jackfruit into our mouths, watching the chickens in the road and listening to the thunderstorm work its way down the valley.