Schets van het eiland en de bevolking van Curaçao.
Macmillan Publishers Ltd, 1986.
Fragment
It is the first week in February and exceedingly busy on the Wilhelmina square in Willemstad. Over 2000 people are dancing and clapping to the ear-splitting sound of a popular band. A tourist looks around and feels somewhat dazed and unfamiliar with all this. Maybe it was not such a good idea to join this clamorous festival after all. Inconspicuously he tries to work his way out of the crowd. As he is doing so, the urge to leave diminishes. For he sees more tourists around and feels a remarkable sense of unity in this extremely varied crowd of people. Good heavens, he muses, this looks like paradise, and slowly but surely, he lets himself be swept along with the intoxicating beat of the Curaçaoan tumba.
Naturally it is not always paradise on Curaçao. It just an impression you may get during the first weeks of the year, when nearly the whole island seems obsessed by the preparations for carnival. This merry façade, however, hides the dynamism and tensions of a developing country. […]
The establishment of the Shell company in 1915 brought about drastic changes in the composition of the population. The oil industry required so many workers that people were attracted from the English-speaking Caribbean islands, Suriname, and even from far-off Madeira. The economic revival had a magnetic influence on many other nationalities, such as Syrians, Lebanese, Ashkenazim Jews, Indonesians, Chinese and yet more Portuguese. It seems as if the earlier population groups became more conscious of their own Curaçaoan identity because of the invasion of other cultures. However, to assert that all social differences between them were thereby erased, would be exaggerated. […]
The western and more rustic part of Curaçao has suffered less from the development fever.
The area around the St. Christoffel Mountain (1230 ft) forms an oasis for nature-lovers. It is surrounded by a high fence to protect it against the goat menace. The area boasts more than five hundred different plant species and over a hundred different kinds of birds live in peace on this area of untouched land. The most common birds are the Chuchubi (tropical mockingbird), the Totolika (common ground dove) and the Barika Hel (bananaquit). […] More popular birds are the Prikichi (parakeet) and the Trupial (troupial). The vivid green Prikichi, with its long-pointed wings, has a conceited head with yellow and orange feathers. Its voice is loud and shrill, and it can be taught quite a large vocabulary. Unfortunately, for that reason, it is often taken into captivity and turned into a clown. The Trupial is also sometimes caged, but its beautiful colors fade in captivity.
The most remarkable bird is the elegant Makuaku (magnificent Frigate bird) with its enormous wingspan and the muted, throaty sounds it makes. Without a noise it glides over the harbor or above the many bays along the coast. When it sees its prey near the water’s surface, it will dive down like an arrow, literally falling out of the sky. At night it retires to a Makuaku-island in the St. Joris Bay to the north-east of the island. Like the Christoffel Park, the Makuaku-island is protected by law.