Tuesday, October 12, 2010

One country dies . . . two are born

Saba Island.
 The Netherlands Antilles, floating off the coast of Venezuela, has dissolved -- via Reuters.
The flag of Netherlands Antilles, before Aruba seceded.
This small island chain fragments politically now into the islands of Bonaire, Saba and and St. Eustatius, now designated "special municipalities" of the Netherlands; Saint Martin aka Saint-Martin aka Sint Maarten; and Curacao, now named Kousou in the language Papiamentu, "a mix of Portuguese and Spanish with traces of English, Dutch and French," according to Reuters -- doesn't that sound like a heavenly language? -- which Curacao shares with Bonaire as its primary tongue. The other three islands use Dutch.
Come to think of it, all these islands have fascinating, interwoven-with-marauding-colonizers histories that go back at least 500 years. And, yes, the blue liqueur called Curacao comes from Curacao, from the dried peel of the fruit of the laraha tree. I'm not kidding.

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