BUFF BAY, Portland — Life hasn’t been easy for 60-year-old Emanuel “One Son” Edwards, and now, in his twilight years, it hasn’t got any better. The almost totally blind man desperately needs somewhere to live.

He occupies one room of a dilapidated house at Kildare in Buff Bay. His late wife’s daughter lives on the other side and she has plans to fix the entire house, so Edwards needs to move while work is going on. He would like to seize this as an opportunity to get a place of his own. There is land available nearby, he said.

“I have been living here for about 40 years. Right now I would like a little house for myself right out there at that open spot. They say they are going to fix up their part so I have to get somewhere to stay mek dem fix up the whole house,” he told the Jamaica Observer during a recent visit.

His wife, who died three years ago, had helped him build the structure that has now seen better days. The roof is riddled with holes and termites have been making a meal of the rotting wood.

The space is cramped. On Edwards’ neatly made bed there’s a suitcase in which he stores his clothes. Overhead, his laundry hangs from a line, slowly drying from rays of sunlight streaming in through the roof. Steps away is his stove, on which rests his two pots. Jugs hang overhead.

“I do my own cooking and help myself and ting. Mi feel around with mi foot,” he explained, adding that he sometimes encounters the dust trail left by termites.

“All mi bed a rotten down an mi just have to just help miself as mi cyaan lay down and nuh do nothing. No one nah really pay mi no mind as I have to wash my clothes, look about mi food. Everybody have dem own ting a do,” he said.

Before he began losing his sight, Edwards worked and supported himself. He lists St Mary Bananas and National Solid Waste Management Authority as former employers.

“I used to cut trees, I worked at St Mary Bananas for five years and it closed. I got $10,000 in those days as redundancy. I then worked with the garbage truck and the man dem stop mi ’cause me couldn’t see. Dem see mi willing fi work but mi wasn’t seeing good. Is two time vehicle knock mi down with garbage pan in mi hand,” he said.

On one of those occasions, he suffered a broken leg, he said, but never received any form of compensation. That accident took place four years ago, he told the Observer.

“Si mi foot ya,” Edwards said as he pulled up his pants leg to show the scarred limb. “Mi nuh get nothing. There is a pin in the foot. They took me to Annotto Bay [hospital] then St Ann’s [Bay Hospital] where they look after mi foot.”

His health problems began in 2006 when he started losing lose his sight. He is still not sure why his world began going dark.

“Mi nuh know; mi go a di doctor, the doctor tell mi seh mi sickness cause from mi nerves and that is it,” he said brusquely when asked. “Right now mi go down to the clinic and they give me paper to go doctor a town [Kingston] fi go check out mi eye. See the paper mi have here. Mi nuh have no funds fi go a di chest hospital with the paper,” he said as he clutched an envelope stashed in a plastic bag to keep it from getting wet when water comes in from the roof.

For now, his most pressing concern is getting somewhere to live — quickly.

“I have tried various ways to get some help for a house but none coming,” said Edwards.

Anyone who wishes to help may contact Edwards at (876) 418-8945.