For Rock model and bodybuilder Michael Anderson, life was anything but greener on the other side when he decided to give European life a go. Accompanying a Dutch national he met four years earlier on The Rock, Anderson took off to Belgium to assist him in promoting Jamaican music, but the best laid plans were not be. Their work union went awry, inevitably leaving Anderson penniless and homeless. “I went to Antwerp and lived in eight different locations over a two-year period. On one occasion I was staying with a friend and because I had no money, one Friday night, I was locked out, and had to sleep in an abandoned building until three in the morning,” he recalled to SO.

“While I was there, my eldest son Mashard called me from Jamaica and was asking me if I was okay, and my answer was ‘I’m fine’ with tears running down my eyes.”

Back home, the ripped Anderson was an in-demand up-and-comer who snagged billboard and television ad campaigns for LASCO, Sunshine Peanuts, Scotiabank, and the Jamaica Public Service Company. He was the second vice-president of the Jamaica Bodybuilding Association and his diligently preserved physique saw him winning Mr Jamaica and Mr Surrey bodybuilding competitions.

Away in a foreign land, life as he knew it had upended. Options were few, but all was not lost.

The tide soon changed in his favour. A charitable Jamaican woman, whom he prefers to identify as ‘Mama Suzie’, proved to be a saviour of sorts. “Many nights I stayed at her house and she would provide food and shelter. She helped many people who passed through her house and always had an open hand and asked for nothing in return.”

An illegal alien for two years, Anderson is proud that he now has a legal resident card, and prouder yet of the turnaround of his life in Belgium.

Today, life is strangely familiar albeit in a different time zone. He is an ad model once more, starring in a string of print, television and online commercials in Europe, and winning first- and third-place titles in bodybuilding competitions, the top honours coming in the International Federation of Body Building Belgian Championships in October 2012.

The muscle man, who tells SO his workout regimen is an intense four-times-a-week turn in the gym, will compete in bodybuilding competitions in Rotterdam in December.

Gone for nearly three years, Anderson was deliriously happy to return to The Rock last month. “My whole family lives here, and I have the two most charming sons Mashard, and Malik, who I love so much and being away from them was heartbreaking.”

Now in Belgium, Anderson, whose financial mainstay is as a personal trainer, says his main focus is “being the best trainer” and staying at the top of his game. There is also the matter of learning the language, which he is currently in the process of doing. As for cultural assimilation, he shares: “I have not felt any rejection here because as a Jamaican, most places you go, we are welcomed; just mention that you are Jamaican and you become the centre of attention.”

Life’s getting better.

— Omar Tomlinson