Comentary
 

 My house is bigger than yours.
  By George Bankus

I have a bigger house than yours because I have more money than you have, and I wish to show the world that I have the biggest badest house in the neighborhood.
Well, no one or at least, I haven’t heard anyone, actually making this boasting statement, but you sort of get the feeling that the thinking behind these huge Jamaican mansions goes somewhat like that.

Now this writer doesn’t envy anyone who builds a huge house back in the island, good for them I’ll say, they have worked hard and is living out their dream.   Too many of us doesn’t even have a clearly defined dream, and these persons had their dream and worked to make their dream come true, so congratulations sir or madam.
For the greater percentage of people who build these luxurious homes however, the dream seems to have stopped where the constructing of these homes ended. We arrived at this conclusion after observing a number of these homes from the beginning of construction to occupancy, and found that there was no clearly thought out answers for the following questions.

 What is the purpose of having a six bedroom home that is going to be occupied initially by two people and, in the majority of the situations by only one person? Why spend or in many cases, borrow the money to furnish the example six bed room home, when at best only two bedrooms will ever be utilized? Will your retirement income be enough to even light this big showcase home? Who will do the domestic work necessary to keep six bedrooms and associated living areas clean? The summers are uncomfortably hot in most places on the island, and if you have spent any time away the heat of summer sometimes seem unbearable, will you be able to adequately cool this home so your visitors will relax and sleep at night?

Here are some unscientific statistics that we collected over a number of years on people who begin constructing large homes in the Jamaican homeland. (1) Roughly 20% of these constructions never get completed. (2) The majority of couples who successfully complete big homes back in the island, lose a spouse within the first four years. The loss is not always due to death, but death is the major reason. (3) Roughly 85% of the times the husband is the one that dies first. (4)The discomfort of a lone person living in a large, securely grilled home with it’s associated expenses, have driven a sizeable number of owners to abandonment. The abandonment in this case means returning to the country that person lived in for years, never to return to their dream home.

We have an idea why this big house syndrome continues even today and understand why it will continue for generations, hopefully at a slower pace. Mostly all of us grew up with the big house on the hill belonging to the richest person in the area and that’s where we focused our dream. I am going to America, England or Canada, spend a few years to accumulate some money and return to show somebody that I am just as good as they are or even better. Most of this is all good and we all need something to fire us up to make something better of ourselves, but we need to pause at some point and think through or, better yet, discuss our dreams with some non covetous person.

Why invest your hard earned cash in a venture that you will not get much pleasure from. Okay so you will feel pride when you acquire the land, when the architect hands you a completed drawing of your dream house on paper, when you break ground and begin the construction. But get pass that and the reality of building in Jamaica begins to slap you full in the face.
We hope we haven’t successfully discouraged anyone from building their dream home back in the island, because that certainly is not our intention. We are trying to get you to scale down the size of your dream home to a two or at most three bedroom home. The spouse who does the cleaning and maintaining will be happier. If there are a number of children, when they do visit and spend the token one night before they go off to their all inclusive, they will be happier sharing space with their siblings. The man in the street will satisfy with a few dollars less when he comes to do some handy man job for you. And most importantly you will not be high on the targeted scale of rich people you know us island people want to rip off.