Real estate management

So there he was in his lil’ house with his lil’ family, and his neighbours whose family he knew and who knew all of his family. Everyone knew everyone in the village. And the boys and girls would come to his yard for kennips, and they were taught to be polite : « good morning Mister Guy, can we have some kennips, please. Of course Mister Guy never said no.
They also knew that mister Guy had a shot gun and was known to be a pretty good hunter.

There came a time when most of the family left. Some died, some went to Mar’gut, the capital and others went to bigger countries, and mister Guy remained alone to hold the fort.

Then one day, one stranger, Philippe was his name, came around. He was white, he was smart and he spoke well. Tu es seul, tu as de la place, je n’ai nulle part ou habiter. accorde moi un bout de terre pour faire une case.
Uncle Guy was kind hearted like all the people in the village. The stranger built a lil’ place for himself. And for some time things went very well. He worked in the capital, selling some clothes and shoes and paid a small rent for his place on the property…

The next summer the gentleman introduced his wife, the next summer the first child was born and a sister came to help the mother… friends begun coming around… parties were kept…the lil’ house was too small for a family of 5… Philippe needed more space and tried sweet talking uncle my Guillaume. He wanted to buy a piece of land.

Uncle Guy was a nice person but he was not stupid. He sensed the danger of been out numbered on his own property. He had to put a stop to the trend.
He consulted with the family, children, cousins, nieces and nephews. Within the family was this nephew, John, who had worked for a real estate company. John was smart. He learned some basics, just by listening to his bosses, and his advice was this :

Let us not sell the land. Let us build a few small houses. Let us fix papers with these people. Word a mouth could be good enough among us but never with strangers, because you don’ no’ who deh fuh weh deh come from, and wha deh background be.
And John became the manager of our real estate company. His strategy turned out to be succesfull. He earned the respect of the village who agreed that he should be our representative in the local government. Uncle Guillaume remained as the overseer and made sure that rents were paid timely. Tenants could see him from afar, as he approached on his old bicycle with his shot gun strapped to his back. We now had the mains to send some ah the children to study abroad… and some did very well. We had a doctor (Peter) and we had a lawyer (Paul) and a lil’ neighbour became an accountant.

The old and faithfull kennip tree was still there, and the small children still came around.
« Good after noon mister Guy, can we have some kennips, please ». And mister Guy was still the same, he never said no.

More people came to live in the village, but the village managed to always have its own specialists… Yo need a doctor ? Go see Peter. Yo need a lawyer ? Go see Paul. Yo need an accoutant ? Go see the neighbour son.
Uncle Guy developped a nice lil garden. You could find all kinds of provisions : Yam and sweet potatoes, Pigeon peas, corn and plantain. He also had a few cows for milk. The neighbors had fruit trees : soursop, sugar apple and figs. All these fresh provision were sold by uncle Victor, a brother to uncle Guillaume, who operated the shop.
The children still enjoyed picking kennips, tamons and pomserets….
FG