Stenen Koraal
The former plantation Steenen Koraal (Kurá di Piedra), formerly also called Steene Coraal or Zeegening, owes its name to the fact that it was entirely surrounded by stone walls metres long. These have now largely been demolished. Only on the border between Kurá di Piedra and Seru Fortuna does part of this wall still stand. The name Kurá di Piedra has also meanwhile been corrupted to Kurá Piedra.
Besides Seru Fortuna, Kurá Piedra is bordered by the neighbourhoods Cabo Verde, Speransa (Goede Hoop), Salsbach, Santa Maria, Suffisant, Kanga, Dein, Muizenberg and Sint Jacob.
It was already laid out in 1700 as a company plantation, but was never a really profitable enterprise.
For centuries mainly maize was grown here, many goats were kept and later cows too, and goats, meat and milk were sold.
Long after the abolition of slavery the bario was still known as a maize garden because of the sale of maishi chikí (small maize), from which maize porridge was made, among other things. People from the wide surroundings also came to have maize ground at Lucas, who had a maize mill here. Another mill stood at Kompa Maiku, who managed a large kunuku near the schools at Kurá Piedra.
Kas di Kurá di Piedra
Landhuis Stenen Koraal, Kas di Kurá Piedra in popular speech, is a small, simple little landhuis that was probably built around 1800 on a raised terrace. Next to it is an enormous rain tank almost as large as the landhuis itself. There was also a hofje with palm trees, and next to the house lay the Roi di Taki, in which many Palu di Taki and also Palu di Oba grew.
Kas di Kurá Piedra has been restored several times, with the wells also being deepened and windmills installed. In 1930 the little landhuis was the headquarters of the scouting movement, after which it was inhabited by various families, until 1974, when the estate was bought by the government for the construction of 107 public-housing dwellings.
The Seru Fortunaweg divides the neighbourhood into Kurá Piedra pariba (upper) and Kurá Piedra pabou (lower), the latter being the oldest part of the neighbourhood. In keeping with the name of the neighbourhood, the streets here are named after gemstones, such as Kaminda Aquamarin, Kaminda Topaz and Kaminda Amatista.
Since 1980 the head office of the teachers' union Sitek has been housed in the landhuis.
Imposing tanki
According to 77-year-old Edwin Martina, born and raised in the neighbourhood, Kurá Piedra was a big plain with many datu and kadushi (tree cacti) and hundreds of goats. Still defining the landscape is the Dam or Tanki di Kurá Piedra, a natural collecting place for rainwater, on the Seru Fortunaweg, close to the landhuis. This was traditionally maintained by the families living closest as one of the most important water supplies in the neighbourhood. After heavy downpours the tanki turns into an idyllic little lake where ducks and flamingos are also spotted. As usual, dams and tanki's on Curaçao were often used as makeshift swimming pools, and people have sometimes drowned in them.
According to Martina there was also a Pos di Kurá Piedra, but when necessary people also fetched water by donkey at Roi Rincon near the airport and later at the public tap installed on Seru Fortuna.
The soil here was very fertile, thanks to the plentiful rainwater, coming from Seru Fortuna and the nearby hills, that stayed in the tanki for a long time.
Besides big and small maize, people grew patia (watermelon), pampuna (pumpkin), milón (melon) and beans. During dry periods animal bones were collected and shipped abroad for making buttons," according to Martina.
Hot rolls
Richenel "Mus" Ansano was also born and raised in the neighbourhood. He still remembers that his grandmother Yoyo baked rolls every Saturday, as many as 400 to 600. "People even came from Buena Vista to buy rolls from her at Kurá Piedra. She also often acted as a midwife. Edwin Martina's mother was another bread baker in the neighbourhood who also delivered at home. There were also coffin makers in the neighbourhood and people who sharpened pickaxes, at that time very important because wells and rain tanks were dug by hand."
Bati paña
Various residents had a small kunuku at home, sometimes with a bentana (window sale), like Nini, who sold farm products and all sorts of things.
At the time when the economy was not doing so well, the women in particular busied themselves with plaiting hats. The straw was supplied with the malchi (sizing pattern) and collected again after two weeks.
During WWII the women earned a living by washing and ironing clothes of soldiers stationed at Hato. Clothes were washed at Porta di Hato, in the bend at Seru di Mahuma, or at the Noordkant, where the wet laundry was laid on the rocks and the dirt beaten out with a stick (bati paña).
A great deal of starch was used and the irons were heated on the konfó (charcoal stove) and then cleaned before use. Because it was the custom in the fifties, but also to prevent ash falling on the clothes, the women smoked cigarettes "kandela paden, with the end in the mouth," according to Ansano. When it later became known that this causes throat cancer, this habit disappeared.
Clothes of the unmarried workers of Shell at Sufisant were also washed at Kurá Piedra. Boys from the neighbourhood earned some pocket money by fetching and returning the big bags of clothing.
Hills
Defining the landscape is furthermore the Seru Kurá Piedra, a hill in the middle of the neighbourhood. It lies south-west of the landhuis, and on its highest summit the kachu (cow horn) used to be blown to announce the death of neighbourhood residents, and during the war years a searchlight stood here. Unfortunately the hill was also known as a place where suicides were committed.
On Seru Kurá Piedra stand two large water tanks and, close to the spot where a park has now been laid out, the well-known home for the homeless of Atála stood in the seventies.
Other hills in the neighbourhood are Seru di Tin Gagu, probably named after a stuttering man who lived there, the Seru di Kloof and, east of the road to Seru Fortuna, the Seru di Siboyo.
Spiritu
Ansano: "Every bario knows a few invisible regular visitors, and so does Kurá Piedra, one of the best known being Wan Domingo. My grandmother told that he always came late in the afternoon from the direction of Mahuma and went eastward over Seru Kurá Piedra and Seru Fortuna. He could be recognised by three lights, pink, white and blue, and the sound of a dragging chain. But if you looked in the street, you saw no one.
Another was an enslaved person who came by with much dragging of chains and fierce gusts of wind. As soon as he had passed, the wind died down again…"
Simadan
Kurá Piedra was very well known for its simadan (Bonairean harvest festival), which was organised in the bario by the Bonairean Ramona, or Mona Zacharai. Visitors from far and wide came to Kurá Piedra especially for it. Also popular was the seú (Curaçao harvest festival), organised by, among others, Weto di Clara. Neighbourhood resident Selsio Martha (80) tells: "The harvest festival was a big event in which the whole bario took part. Already at 5 o'clock at night people went with loud singing to the kunuku's at Hato, where the maize tops were cut off and we boys feasted on the many patia's and milons," according to Martha.
High Flying Park
Selsio was the inventor of the original High Flying Park concept, and together with Nel Simons and Norva Sling he worked out the original idea. At this location one would dive into the history of Indians and enslaved people on Curaçao and also pay homage to residents who had committed themselves to the neighbourhood in the field of art and sport. Thus the first High Flying Park in Curaçao appeared on Seru Fortuna, and the concept became wildly popular, with young people in particular coming together in many neighbourhoods to set up parks, each trying to outdo the other in creativity. The parks long served afterwards as meeting places in the neighbourhoods. In the neighbourhood Sint Jago near Scharloo the High Flying Park still serves as the meeting place for events in the neighbourhood, and at Westpunt, at the turn-off to Playa Piskadó, the park is also still maintained.
With thanks to: Selsio Martha, Tante Mikki, Jeannette Juliet–Pablo, Edwin Martina, François van der Hoeven, Richenel Ansano, Rosemary Allen, Jeroen Heuvel and André Rancuret.
