Develde Farm

Owned and run by the Committee.
Miss Anjulie
‘Aye, my beat is this place, the men’s camp further in and two more farms on the other side of the river. This place is the worst, so I stay here most of the time. It would be a decent profitable farm if it wasn’t for that fucking Anjulie. She roasts about a woman a month at the moment.’
Where Helen is first seen in the book:
More women filed in, mainly black skinned, locals from the Delta, undoing their headscarves and loosening their hair as they crossed the threshold. They sat together, fanning themselves with bits of cardboard, talking and laughing, a sound like exotic birds. The locals were the kindest of all the slaves, but Helen found them difficult to talk to, her skin colour marked her out. To them she was “one of dem left-over women”, a displaced person, not worth getting to know as she’d soon be dead of a splinter virus, worked to death or worse, a drinker of the bitter waters, to be dealt with as a witch. They were the originals, the first women on the farm, from a congregation of Methodists that had been rounded up by the Committee. Since then, others like Helen had arrived. There were stories about a men’s camp not so far away, but only stories.
Jobs
‘Sure, Miss,’ chimed in Melissa. ‘I harvest de sugar cane.’
‘I worked in an orange orchard,’ added Helen.
Chapter 11
It had been much worse for the displaced people that ended up on the farms around Goldengreens, especially the white ones. If you didn’t seek the protection of one of the locals you tended to end up in a bad way. She had had to learn quickly.
~
She had to cope with the cold reality of the situation and deal with it. It was either that or die. And some of the other women had died because of their failure to given in, to bend. And it had mainly been the westerners, mainly the white ones. Like it was all a dreadful mistake and could they please speak to the manager. Luckily for me, Helen often thought, I had very little self-respect to give up in the first place. 
Category:Paradise
Category:Paradise Locations