Before first light kisses the north-coast horizon, Anna-Kay Boswell Johnson is already in motion. The 38-year-old mother of three navigates Ocho Rios like a seasoned air-traffic controller: two teenagers headed to classes, a preschooler buckled into her seat, inventory checks at the family hardware store, then a dash across town to prep her Buckfield Airbnb for arriving guests.
By 9 a.m., most people are sipping coffee; Boswell Johnson is balancing receipts and wiping countertops. “Some days the schedule looks impossible—until you remember quitting isn’t on the list,” she says with a quick grin.
Late last month that relentless schedule steered her into Rexo Supermarket for the usual Airbnb restock—paper goods, drinks, welcome snacks. Routine turned remarkable when a phone call pierced the checkout line: Smirnoff’s “We Do Carnival” promotion had picked her for a $50,000 shopping spree.
“I had stepped into a telecom office to sort out a bill,” she recalls. “The agent’s still talking and I’m whispering, ‘Hold on—someone says I just won what?’” The disbelief lasted seconds; the relief, much longer. “First thing that crossed my mind? ‘Great, that’s next week’s chicken sorted.’”
For a working parent staring down Jamaica’s skyrocketing grocery bills—“Thirty, forty grand per week if you blink”—the windfall is more than celebratory fizz. It’s breathing room. “When a promotion finally lands in your favour, it feels like the universe hit the pause button on the stress,” she says.
Boswell Johnson entered on a whim; it was her debut attempt at any contest. The takeaway she offers other multi-tasking parents is simple, delivered with the calm authority of someone who fits 30 hours of life into a 24-hour day: “Pressure is real, but so is possibility. Keep going.”
In her world, dawn starts the grind—and occasionally delivers the grand prize.
