Caribbean
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Curacao 2.
Curacao 2.
Culture:
Despite the island's relatively small population, the diversity of languages and cultural influences on Curaçao have generated a remarkable literary tradition, primarily in Dutch and Papiamentu. The oral traditions of the Arawak indigenous peoples are lost. West African slaves brought the tales of Anansi, thus forming the basis of Papiamentu literature. The first published work in Papiamentu was a poem by Joseph Sickman Corsen entitled Atardi, published in the La Cruz newspaper in 1905. Throughout Curaçaoan literature, narrative techniques and metaphors best characterized as magic realism tend to predominate. Novelists and poets from Curaçao have made an impressive contribution to Caribbean and Dutch literature. Best known are Cola Debrot, Frank Martinus Arion, Pierre Lauffer, Elis Juliana,Guillermo Rosario, Boeli van Leeuwen and Tip Marugg.
Cuisine:
Local food is called Krioyo (pronounced the same as criollo, the Spanish word for "Creole") and boasts a blend of flavours and techniques best compared to Caribbean cuisine and Latin American cuisine. Dishes common in Curaçao are found in Aruba and Bonaire as well. Popular dishes include: stobá (a stew made with various ingredients such as papaya, beef or goat), Guiambo (soup made from okra and seafood), kadushi (cactus soup), sopi mondongo (intestine soup), funchi (cornmeal paste similar to fufu, ugali and polenta) and a lot of fish and other seafood. The ubiquitous side dish is fried plantain. Local bread rolls are made according to a Portuguese recipe. All around the island, there are snèks which serve local dishes as well as alcoholic drinks in a manner akin to the English public house.
The ubiquitous breakfast dish is pastechi: fried pastry with fillings of cheese, tuna, ham, or ground meat. Around the holiday season special dishes are consumed, such as the hallaca and pekelé, made out of salt cod. At weddings and other special occasions a variety of kos dushi are served: kokada (coconut sweets), ko'i lechi (condensed milk and sugar sweet) and tentalaria (peanut sweets). The Curaçao liqueur was developed here, when a local experimented with the rinds of the local citrus fruit known as laraha. Surinamese, Chinese, Indonesian, Indian and Dutch culinary influences also abound. The island also has a number of Chinese restaurants that serve mainly Indonesian dishes such as satay, nasi goreng and lumpia (which are all Indonesian names for the dishes). Dutch specialties such as croquettes and oliebollen are widely served in homes and restaurants.
Keshi Yena, very popular in Aruba and Curacao is a local dish of cheese stuffed with meat. Yes, you read that right, cheese stuffed with meat, not meat stuffed with cheese. The meat is usually spiced chicken, olives, tomatoes, capers and onion. Created by slaves that lived on the island during the Dutch colonization. The owners of the plantations would eat the cheese from inside out and throw the wheel to the slaves. They would take it, peel the wax and soak the remaining cheese to soften it up. The rinds filled with leftover meat was baked until melted and so Keshi Yena was created, a delicious dish served all over the island in our days.
Iguana is not just an animal in Curacao, is actually a very popular food eaten in a stew as Yuana Stoba or cooked with sauce and served on a plate to be eaten with your hands, like chicken wings. It is believed that the iguana meat will make you strong and is considered to be an aphrodisiac.
Okra Soup also known as Jambo or Guiambo, this soup is made of green okra vegetable, boiled and mixed with fish and salted meat. Being compared with American gumbo, this dish is one of the favorites of many locals. Another soup in Curacao is Kadushi, a soup made from kadushi cactus, somehow slimy and goofy.
Conch is a sea snail which grows and lives in a huge beautiful shell used by some cultures as blowing horns instruments. The conch can be eaten cooked or raw. However, the favorite way to cook the conch is with lots of oil, garlic and butter.
Music:
The music of the former Netherlands Antilles is a mixture of native, African and European elements, and is closely connected with trends from neighboring countries such as Venezuela and Colombia and islands such as Puerto Rico, Cuba, Santo Domingo, Haiti, Martinique, Trinidad, Dominica, and Guadeloupe. The former Netherlands Antilles islands of Curaçao and Aruba are known for their typical waltzes, danzas, mazurkas and a kind of music called tumba, which is named after the conga drums that accompany it.
The remaining islands are much smaller than Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao. They are Sint Eustatius, Sint Maarten and Saba. Sint Eustatius has little nightlife, with only one nightclub (the zouk Largo Height Disco) as of 1996. The inhabitants, "Statians", hold impromptu street dances called "road blocks", using booming car stereos. Saba has a number of dances at various restaurants, including a wide variety of hip hop, calypso, soca, kompa, zouk, bouyon, reggae and merengue. Sint Maarten has a well-known Carnival tradition featuring music and dance, held in mid-April and culminating in the traditional burning of King Moui-Moui, as well as a number of nightclubs and casinos featuring music; popular "spots" where locals go to dance include Boo Boo Jam and Lago Height, both located on the northern (French) part of Sint Maarten; the most popular recent casino band is King Bo-Bo, known as the "King of Calypso".
Ethnic Racial Composition:
* 85% Black & Mulatto
* 15% White & Asian
People:
Because of its history, the island's population comes from a number of ethnic backgrounds. There is an Afro-Caribbean majority of African descent, and also sizeable minorities of Dutch, Latin American, French, South Asian, East Asian, Portuguese and Levantine people. Additionally, there are both Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews. The population of Curacaoans is very diverse in general
The island provided one special advantage for the Dutch—one of the finest natural harbours in the West Indies. At the southeastern end of the island, a channel, Sint Anna Bay, passes through reefs to a large, deep, virtually enclosed bay called Schottegat, the site of the capital town, Willemstad. The need for salt to preserve herring initially drove the Dutch to the Caribbean. During the period 1660 to 1700, the Dutch West India Company flourished; the slave trade boomed, and the port of Curaçao was opened to all countries both to receive the incoming food supplies and to dispose of products from the plantations of South America. The island was subjected to frequent invasions from competing privateers and suffered during the wars between the English and Dutch. It has remained continuously in Dutch hands since 1816.
Languages:
Ducth, Papiamentu, and English are the three official languages of Curacao. The language that is mostly spoken is Papiamentu. Papiamentu is a Spanish-Portuguese Creole language with influences from Dutch and West-Central African languages. They also use many Caribbean Native words for names of food or environmental objects. There is also some English words used as it has also influenced somewhat the Papiamentu dialect.
Religion:
The majority of the population is Roman Catholic, with Protestant minorities, both evangelical and other low-church denominations. There is also a Baha'i temple and a synagogue.
Sports:
In 2004, the Little League Baseball team from Willemstad, Curaçao, won the world title in a game against the United States champion from Thousand Oaks, California. The Willemstad lineup included Jurickson Profar, the standout shortstop prospect who now plays for the Texas Rangers of Major League Baseball.
In the 2006 World Baseball Classic, Curaçaoans played for the Netherlands team. Shairon Martis, born in Willemstad, contributed to the Dutch team by throwing a seven-inning no-hitter against Panama (the game was stopped due to the mercy rule).
The 2010 documentary film, Boys of Summer, details Curaçao's Pabao Little League All-Stars winning their country's eighth straight championship at the 2008 Little League World Series, then going on to defeat other teams, including Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, and earning a spot in Williamsport.
The prevailing trade winds and warm water make Curaçao a location for windsurfing. One factor is that the deep water around Curaçao makes it difficult to lay marks for major windsurfing events, thus hindering the island's success as a windsurfing destination.
There is warm, clear water around the island. Scuba divers and snorkelers may have visibility up to 30 metres (98 feet) at the Curaçao Underwater Marine Park, which stretches along 20 kilometres (12 miles) of Curaçao's southern coastline.
Curaçao participated in the 2013 CARIFTA Games. Kevin Philbert stood third in the under-20 male Long Jump with a distance of 7.36 metres (24.1 ft). Vanessa Philbert stood second the under-17 female 1,500 metres (4,900 feet) with a time of 4:47.97.
Curacaoan videos
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