Page 52 - SpontaneousSuccessFINAL6

NICHOLAS BOOTHMAN
I could feel a different kind of vacuum in the air—the
kind that's good for some people and bad for others. On
the one hand, new money started creating jobs and
giving people real opportunities. But at the same time, it
kicked off a crazy scramble for land, with developers
buying up property that had been in families for
generations. You could already see signs of corruption,
like when minor government officials suddenly traded in
their old motorcycles for brand-new fancy cars.
This was just the beginning, the first ripple of an
approaching tidal wave. A legion of tourists was on its
way, hungry for sunny beaches and cheap beer. You
could see the blueprint for what was coming, clear as
day.
First would come the offers, tempting sums of money
for a small fisherman's cottage or a patch of land. It
would feel like a windfall, a quick payday for a generation
that had known only hard work. But it was a trap. They
could sell now, but the moment the ink was dry, that
money would start to shrink. Because with the new
hotels and infinity pools, the price of the land would
skyrocket into a different stratosphere, forever beyond
their reach.
They would be trading their heritage for a down
payment on a life somewhere else, only to watch their
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