Mina Scharbaai

Mina Scharbaay

Mina Scharbaay, also called Tjas Scharbaay or Buena Esperanza, is a former small plantation east of Veeris and north of the Sambil shopping centre at Veeris. Maria Wilhelmina — Mina — Scharbaay (also spelled Scharbaai) was owner around 1880 and a well-known personality in the area. According to one of the oldest residents of the neighbourhood, Theo Naar, she was a well-to-do lady who liked a party.

"Besides birthday parties, the estate was also known for tambu events, cockfights and the fire-jumping that was organised here at the Saint John's feast (24 June). In addition, all kinds of things were grown on the estate, such as maize, beans and tobacco," says Theo Naar.

The Scharbaai family

Mina married on 12 November 1820 in Curaçao to Matthijs Scharbaai, and they had a family of at least six girls and 1 boy; some children had died at a young age.

Mina herself probably died on 3 September 1874 and her husband on 21 July 1851. His heirs are then:

• Catharina, married to Adriaan Baziel;
• (Maria) Henriette, married to Etienne Lourens Crisson;
• Johanna (Girigorie), widow of Guillermo Lourens;
• Martha (Maria Luciana), married to Louis Duikin (Dycke);
• Anthonette and Plantina, both of whom were unmarried.

Also the 3 legitimate children of Mathijs's son Charles Scharbaai, namely Wilhelmina, alias Maria Mercelina, married to George Everts, and Mathilde and Theodorus Scharbaai, who were still unmarried.

Besides the estate that was probably later called Mina Scharbaai, the couple had also owned continuously since 1816 the adjoining grounds of Sans Soucis, bordering on the west side on the roundabout of Palu Blanku.

The landhuis

The landhuis was traditionally built: a core with a saddle roof and with dormers on two sides. Lengthwise and beside the core were two galleries with a lean-to roof, and an attic with dormers. In front of the entrance on the south side was a large terrace in the shape of a semicircle, with a long perpendicular staircase in front of it.

Salvador Metry

A remarkable resident of Mina Scharbaai was Salvador — Abdallah — Metry, an uncle of the well-known politician and businessman Faroe Metry. Metry writes that the Lebanese Salvador left as a teenager aboard a ship from Lebanon to Mexico and from there travelled to Cuba, Santo Domingo and Haiti. He was probably called "Salvador" there, a translation of his Arabic name Abdallah, which means "servant of God" or "the saviour".

Salvador liked to tell about his travel adventures, such as when he lived in Haiti in a landhuis that everyone avoided because it was haunted. One evening he met the ghost there, a pirate, with rattling chains, who invited him to go outside and pointed out a tree in the yard to him. Salvador did not come closer and stayed on his guard, but the next day had his staff dig under the tree. There they found the skeleton of a pirate caught in chains, who had probably been buried alive. After the skeleton was laid to rest in a more respectable manner, the haunting stopped at once as well.

Buena Esperansa

Salvador probably had a liking for landhuizen: when he arrived on Curaçao as a rich man he went to live in Mina Scharbaay's landhuis. He was then 38 years old and bought the estate on 8 October 1925 by taking a mortgage of 16,000 guilders from the then Maduro's Bank. In this way he came into possession of two terrains with all the buildings standing on them, namely Buena Esperansa alias Tjas Scharbaay, on which the landhuis stood, and another piece of land, both belonging to the neighbourhood of Mina Scharbaai. The estate was 50,000 square metres in size with, besides the landhuis, seven small wooden dwellings. Salvador was very well known on Curaçao and had a radio, so that he was well informed of international news.

Bankruptcy

According to Faroe Metry, Salvador was more an adventurer than a businessman: he sold foodstuffs and clothing door to door from his car, but there was no continuity.

Reportedly many Lebanese came to Curaçao through his mediation, and he also lent them many goods that were never repaid. In addition there was quite a lot of unpaid land tax, as a result of which he was finally declared bankrupt in March 1938.

Mina Scharbaai was then sold for 4,500 guilders to the highest bidder: Isaac Haim — Shon Sha — Capriles, director of the later MCB bank.

Salvador then lived again in a landhuis, this time that of Daniël, together with his wife, who rented the property. That landhuis was also known for the many ghosts that liked to dwell there. Salvador died of a heart attack on 29 November 1960 and was buried in a cemetery on the Roodeweg. In September 2009 the mortal remains were transferred to the family grave at Bottelier.

Kamel Metry

Although Mina Scharbaai was sold, the Metry family stayed on living in the landhuis from 1938 to 1947. Kamel Metry, Faroe's father, and his wife had nine children, eight of whom were born at the landhuis. At the landhuis of Mina Scharbaai at no. 30 there also stood a concrete building in which a bakery was established, and along the public road another building where groceries were sold, run by Kamel Metry and his wife. Through the bankruptcy these buildings, owned by Salvador, were also auctioned.

The Metry couple had meanwhile saved diligently, so that in 1947 they could buy the property Mina Scharbaai no. 12, which stands close to the landhuis. It was owned by Lina and her husband, who was known in the bario as Papa Drop. The house was quickly extended by Kamel, and a shop at home was added too.

Faroe describes Mina Scharbaai from that time as a poor neighbourhood with mainly refinery workers, originating from the English Windward Islands and from Suriname, who lived in wooden houses.

Attempted murder

Metry also describes an attempted murder in the landhuis in which a cousin of Salvador, Napoli, was involved. Napoli went around with the sister of his best friend, who later also proved to be the one who wanted to kill him. Reportedly the motive was that Napoli was a Muslim, in those days a real disgrace, and so it was decided from higher up in the family that he had to disappear. An attempt to strangle him failed, after which he was shot in the finger and in the belly. The murderer and his assistant had even brought a pickaxe and shovel to bury their victim, but it did not come to that. Napoli, although badly wounded, managed to escape his attackers by fleeing to Kamel's house, which stood close to the landhuis. The perpetrators were later locked up for attempted murder.

Alfred Braams

Around 1946 the MCB bank sold the landhuis of Mina Scharbaai and the piece of land belonging to it to the baker Alfred Rudolf Jacques Braams. Grandchildren of Braams tell that the landhuis had a spacious sitting room, an elongated kitchen and a larger and a smaller room. Next to the small room was a hall where "Baas Braams" had his office. There was also a modern bathroom next to the dining room. From the dining room a wooden staircase ran to the attic, where another small and a larger room lay.

When the Braams family lived there, a rain tank and a large oil tank for the bakery stood west of the landhuis.

Generous

The family built a bakery diagonally in front of the landhuis: Algemeen Belang Alfred Braams, better known as Bakkerij Braams.

"With Bakkerij Braams in the bario, nobody in Mina Scharbaai went hungry any more," say Ethel and Yvette Braams, grandchildren of the baker. "Besides grandpa, his son, our father Otmar — Willy — Braams, was also a baker, and besides bread, biscuits, pandushi (currant bread), cakes and petit fours were also baked.

Our grandmother, Julie Braams–Herdigein, was very generous, and poor neighbourhood residents who knocked at the bakery always got something. Grandma herself often handed out bread and pandushi to children from the neighbourhood, and she also regularly gave big bags full of bread to a disadvantaged neighbour who had very many grandchildren.

In addition, the landhuis was always open, and because our grandparents had television in those days, the whole neighbourhood came over. If grandpa wasn't in a bad mood, that is, because then he chased everyone out of the landhuis," say Ethel and Yvette.

Ruin

In October 1976 the landhuis, the shop and the bakery were offered for sale in the newspaper, yet it took until 13 February 1986 before they were actually sold.

Grandpa Alfred Braams died on 1 April 1979, and after the sale of the estate in 1986 the landhuis fell into ruin. For a while it was still used by young people from the neighbourhood as a gym for bodybuilding.

But in 2025 the landhuis of Mina Scharbaai was razed to the ground, and on 1 July 2026 the little hill on which it stood was also excavated. An emotional moment for the grandchildren of Braams, who, on holiday from the Netherlands, happened to be visiting Mina Scharbaai at exactly that time….

Sources

• Metry, F.: History of the old Lebanese families on Curaçao
• J. van Ditzhuijzen: Kas di Shon, plantation houses of Curaçao

With thanks to: Julie Frederik, André Rancuret, Christel Monsanto, Ethel and Yvette Braams, Theo Naar, François van der Hoeven, Jeroen Heuvel and Mongui Maduro Library.