3 life & business lessons from my great grandmother

Wisdom beyond the classroom

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” — Joan Didion.

Igrew up in the countryside of a small Caribbean island, surrounded by a multilineage, multi-generational family structure — not much different from any traditional African village. It’s the kind of village where if you came upon someone you didn’t know, it was not uncommon to ask as many questions as needed to determine whether you were enough degrees separated — a necessary precaution to avoid inbreeding and potential romantic entanglements. And here in that village, the most cherished member was the grand matriarch of my family — my great-grandmother, Nen!

In many Caribbean families, oral storytelling is the lifeblood of our way of living. Like our African ancestors, oral storytelling preserves and reinforces historical, familial, and cultural narratives. Sometimes the same story is repeated so many times that it becomes, in short, our truths, woven into the DNA of our lives. Ask any of my siblings or cousins — we have the same stories, retold with many flavourings from other family elders, but for all intents and purposes, they preserve the same core narratives.