OWNING your own business, and providing reliable and efficient service to the community can be a very rewarding prospect. This is exactly what Chamsie Carmichael was thinking when she decided it was time to open a shop.

The upbeat Carmichael opened her boutique selling brand-name clothing, perfumes, and shoes among other things as well as a bill payment service in 2015 as a licensed business at Public Road Tempie Village, West Coast Berbice.

She would source all the products from overseas and before she opened her boutique, she used to walk and sell.

The enterprising woman related that she patterned herself as a businesswoman after her father, who used to work in Region 10, bought and sold items as a ‘side business’ to earn.

Carmichael is a full-time employee attached to Guyana Water Inc. as a supervisor and she has her niece, Kellyann Jerricks, to manage the business while she is at work.

The locals of Tempie support the business and would pay all their bills at the location which opens daily and even top up their cell phones.

As such, Carmichael has a good relationship with the people and they get along well. As a country girl, she knows all the people who reside there.

“This country life is nice, it simple but you must work to be comfortable and have nice things. I used to fish from the canals, bathe in the trenches and even go to the pasture to catch patwa and tilapia. Eating fresh and having our own foods is a tradition here, and the people know what they have to [do to] earn,” she said.

Carmichael explained that even though they are self-sufficient, they also need a few things to enhance their lives.

And one of those things that are needed is infrastructure, such as an upgrade of the drainage system. Being a farming village, it is essential to have a good network to safeguard crops.

Meanwhile, Kellyann Jerricks was busy putting together party bags with goodies while she waited on the birthday cake to take to her daughter’s school in observance of her eighth birth anniversary on Monday last.

She distributed 25 party bags, and the cake was cut and evenly shared among the school’s pupils that day following a small thanksgiving service.

Frederick Franklin, the shopkeeper
Also in Tempie is the home and business place of Frederick Franklin, who has a shop with every little thing, and it is conveniently located on the public road.

Franklin worked for many years abroad and returned to Guyana, his place of birth, to open his own business in 2012.

“Life isn’t that bad here but business is not like before. We are alive, and I am thankful for what I have and after living overseas, I had to come back to live here. There is simply no place like Guyana,” he said.

Franklin is a very friendly man, who spends a lot of time in his shop and tending to customers, and his fellow villagers, all of whom are known to him.

He sells clothing, household items, groceries, beverages, feed, gas, water among other things and opens daily to provide a reliable service to the village.

Franklin is well-known and said that there is no place like home, Guyana and he went overseas to make his money and returned home to establish his own business.

These days, he takes things easy, does what he has to, and seems to be enjoying himself since Tempie Village is a safe place to reside and have a business.

Lyndon Cumberbatch, the poultry farmer
Lyndon Cumberbatch is also a Tempie Village, West Coast Berbice resident and doesn’t like the idea of having to work for people.

He is rearing ducks and chickens and he would sell to wholesale buyers, who would visit to make purchases when he has poultry in stock.

Cumberbatch rears ducks and chickens on a large scale and it is his way of being self-employed.

The 32-year-old told the Pepperpot Magazine that life is nice and quiet in Tempie Village and it is a place that doesn’t make the news and nothing happens there except for a simple way of life.