The Internet

Our move to the new house at Belmont coincided with the formation of my new company, Bequia Villa Rentals.  I now had another business to keep track of, but keeping track of rentals was in many ways simpler than keeping track of the Pizzeria!  Villa Rentals was very much a one-woman show; there were no supplies to worry about other than credit card slips, stamps and envelopes, and although the clerical work was at times onerous it certainly wasn’t difficult.  Having made the decision to stop serving breakfast at the restaurant helped, it gave me more time to devote to the new business.

Although we were still sleeping in the children’s quarters, my office off the master bedroom suite was usable. A phone had been installed for the fax machine, and my trusty old typewriter had a desk to sit on. I had been given a Merchant credit card machine by the bank (the old-fashioned kind), and was now able to take credit card payments from my clients. The booking process became smooth; once a client had chosen a villa the reservation would be confirmed with a ten percent deposit via credit card.  I would write a cheque for the villa owner and mail the client a receipt.  The balance of the rent was due three weeks prior to arrival, and, unless I heard to the contrary, I went ahead and used the same credit card at that time.  No more missing cheques in the mail, being able to accept credit cards was a game-changer!  I DID still have to send photographs of the villas by post, and that was the only time-consuming (not to mention expensive) part of the operation.

Once the client had paid for the villa, arrival details were laid out.  I assigned a taxi to collect the visitors from the ferry, making SURE the clients knew the driver’s name.  There were fewer taxis in the early 90’s, but getting into the wrong vehicle could (and invariably DID) lead to confusion.  The taxi would have delivered any pre-ordered groceries to the villa earlier in the day, and the driver needed to be paid for that trip as well as for the trip to the villa.  Doris of Doris Fresh Foods was a huge help, I faxed her the clients’ “wish lists” along with the name of the villa and the appropriate taxi, and she organized the groceries. Doris knew that the clients would pass by her shop to pay for the items they had ordered at some point during their stay, and to the best of my knowledge no-one ever “stiffed” her.

Progress on Bequia meant that I now lived in a house with not one but THREE telephones, one for the bedroom, one for the office and one for the kitchen. Times were changing quickly, my fax machine was now one of many on the Island, and it made communication with the outside world much easier. My fax machine still seemed magical, I found it amazing that a message could be transmitted so quickly in such a way, and with long-distance phone calls so costly it was a blessing. 

One day the phone rang while we were having supper.  Picking up the kitchen phone, I listened as a man from New York introduced himself. He was interested in renting Marie Kingston’s Beach House in Lower Bay, and told me he had heard about it through the Internet.  I told the man that I would get in touch with Marie to check availability, and would fax him with dates.  That’s when the man asked me a strange question;

“What’s your e-mail address?”

I proceeded to give him my mailing address, Box 23, Belmont, Bequia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, West Indies.

“No, not your snail address, your E-MAIL address. What’s your E-Mail?”

I told the man that was the only address I had, and he laughed in disbelief.

I called Marie to ask about availability for the Beach House, and told her that the man from New York had heard about the villa through the internet.

“What IS that?” asked Marie. “Do you think it’s a travel agent?”

Marie and I spoke in hushed tones about this “Internet” organization, worrying that they would expect commission for steering a client our way. It would be quite some time before Marie and I understood what an “Internet” was, not to mention e-mail addresses!  We were a couple of small-Island dinosaurs……..