Tera Kòrá and surroundings

(continued from Daniël & surroundings)

A remarkable sight in Tera Kòrá is the sports field built by the professional baseball player Didi Gregorius – who played for, among others, the New York Yankees – who comes from Tera Kòrá. The field, built entirely to current American standards, is mainly intended for training the little league, the youth baseball teams of Curaçao.

The page Daniël & surroundings covers the history of the barios from Grote Berg up to and including Daniël. This page continues along the Weg naar Westpunt with the barios around Tera Kòrá, namely Pos di Wanga, Duzu and Baai Klaas (see the attached map). The history of the large former plantations Fontein and Siberie and of the smaller San Pedro (including Krakeel) is on their own pages.

Breaking wind

Pos (Poz) di Wanga, Poso Wanga, Poos di Wanga is a small piece of family land, tereno di famia, opposite Tera Kòrá and wedged between Duzu and Kunuku Abou. In 1872 Pos di Wanga became the property of the great-grandchildren of the couple Maria Magdalena and Pieter, popularly called Pepe Nene and Uncle Piet. The couple died on the same day and were buried in a double grave, the Graf di Pos di Wanga. This grave has since disappeared, however.

The story goes that a shon (master), accompanied by one of his enslaved men, was a guest at a dinner. The shon broke wind, but the enslaved man hurried to take the blame and apologise, to spare his master the disgrace. As a reward he was given the little piece of land Pos di Wanga, which is still owned by his descendants, who also confirm this remarkable story.

A second story is also connected with the place. An enslaved man from San Juan in Bándabou had guard duty in Punda and always set out with three donkeys. Once, on the way back, two of the donkeys ran off. He could not bring them back and, realising that a severe beating awaited him, he jumped in despair into the Pos di Wanga, which from then on was also called Pos di Machu, the donkey well.

Wanga is a family name, and the Pos di Wanga is a natural well that almost always had water in it. There is also a Tanki di Wanga, a natural water catchment on the site.

On the border between Pos di Wanga and Duzu stand a Chinese minimarket and a launderette called Duzu. According to local residents, however, this business stands on Pos di Wanga and not on Duzu. Still, it is a nice initiative to use the name – this way old Curaçao neighbourhood names are less quickly forgotten.

White clay

Between this Chinese launderette and – to the west – the little office of Robbie’s lottery lies Duzu, also called Dezu (Dusu, Desu, Dosu, Doesoe, 1827, 1835), Husú, H(o)essoe or Dessoe. Duzu means ‘born after twins’ and is the usual term on Curaçao; on Bonaire people say Dusu. Supernatural powers such as clairvoyance are often attributed to the duzu. But if the duzu does not like you, he or she can make you quite ill: “e ta kue bo barika” (literally: “he grabs your belly”), simply by touching your belly or just thinking about it. You then get severe stomach ache, tightness of the chest and heavy sweating, and you can even die of it. You have to persuade the duzu to lift the curse, or else call in a traditional specialist to undo it.

The most interesting thing about the former kunuku Duzu is that it is one of the few places on Curaçao where white clay lies there for the taking. It comes from the surrounding limestone, lies on small mounds on the site and was used in construction to make white paint (lancha muraya) – hence the expression ‘whitewashed’ houses. This clay was also used to fire pots, among other places at nearby Fontein, and works of art were made from it. Children from the neighbourhood used to use it as icing to decorate cakes made of earth.

Healing

By digging deeper you get ‘cleaner’ clay, called kaolin. It is the softest kind of healing clay for sensitive skin and is used mainly as a face mask or for medicinal purposes such as skin irritation. Alternative healers still use it to cleanse the intestines, and in Haiti people eat clay biscuits when they really have nothing else. There are still several wells on the site, and children came to the Pos di Duzu with pots and pans to fetch water.

Because of the barren soil there was not enough vegetation here. Goats could still find something to eat, but the cattle were taken every morning to grazing land at Meiberg, near Malpais, and fetched again early in the evening.

At the back, against the ridge, stands the ruin of a stone-crushing plant (1962), where rocks were ground to grit in a stone mill.

Seter

The small plantation Duzu is 2 hectares, and the present owners, the Ricardo family, still have the original deeds of transfer.

Edsel and Carla Ricardo say that their grandfather was chairman of the ‘seter’ – the funeral society of Tera Kòrá and surroundings. It was founded on 12 December 1911, and the deed was ratified by the governor on 23 January 1912. The gentlemen met every Sunday, dressed entirely in white, in the Kas di seter, close to the border with Baai Klaas. The ruins still stand there on a little hill with a panoramic view of Tera Kòrá. The contribution to the seter was a quarter guilder per family per month.

But before it served as the office of the funeral society, this building was probably the inn of Tera Kòrá. Just like at Martha Koosje and at Wechi, it was a stopover and overnight stay for travellers going from Bándabou to town and back. There are stories of families who stayed here on their way to the now vanished first plantation house of Wacao, where they spent their holidays.

At Dusu, Baai Klaas and Pos di Wanga there were public taps. Most of the population of Bándabou favoured the National Party, and when the Democrats won the elections all the public taps were shut off. People then had to make the long trip to San Pedro to fetch water. Both Duzu and Baai Klaas originally belonged to the plantation Siberie.

Baai Klaas (Baas Klaas)

Baai Klaas is a knoek (small settlement) on the Weg naar Westpunt, west of Tera Kòrá, on the slope of a hill opposite the public housing of Tera Kòrá. It is named after the first owner of the land, Baas Klaas, corrupted into Ba(a)i Klaas or Baayklaas (1827) – in popular speech Bai Klaas – which was once inhabited by free people. It is fertile land: there was a dam and many fruit trees, and with the yield of gardens, kunuku, livestock and fishing people could be entirely self-sufficient. Reportedly a plantation house also once stood at Baai Klaas, whose ruin could be seen for a long time.

In the mondi (bush) at Bai Klaas you can still see the ruin of the doctor’s room where the doctor from Soto treated patients from Tera Kòrá twice a week. From Bai Klaas you can drive south along a back road over fairly high hills to the valley of Sint Marie, with several former plantations, and Sint Willibrordus. For children from Tera Kòrá this was a frightening daily ride, because it was the route to the school in Willibrordus.

Along this back road you pass the striking hill Djaka Kome, made of Midden Curaçao rock: stacked layers of stone that crumble easily, so it looks as if rats have gnawed at it.

Although it lies opposite Tera Kòrá, Baai Klaas is nowadays often referred to as Tera Kòrá.

Tera Kòrá

The name Tera Kòrá, red earth, refers to the red colour of the soil in the neighbourhood. This colour comes from the oxidised iron in the limestone plateau (a former coral reef) on which the bario lies. That is the same reason why the Roodeweg in Otrobanda has its name.

Tera Kòrá also has red clay, which was used for pottery. Because of all the building the red colour is not so easy to see any more, except when you walk in the mondi or get close to the coast.

Most of the men of Tera Kòrá were fishermen; they reached the sea over the rocks, and later a staircase was built. They also used the Porta di Garoshi, the cart gate which, with three ramps, led from the high terrace down to the low terrace. It begins in Tera Kòrá, which around 1911 was still a little village, and was built by the residents so that they could farm on the fertile part of the plain. The ramps of the Porta di Garoshi have not been maintained for years and are overgrown by the mondi, so they can no longer be seen.

Chichi di Win

An old custom that was also common in Tera Kòrá is linking people’s names to those of their partners, for example Chichi di Win (Chichi = Cecilia, Win = Wilmo). Poli di Yuya was Hipolito di Julia. As a young person you were not allowed to call older people by their name; that was disrespectful, falta di rèspèt.

At Chichi di Win’s, parties were held at which the kai orgel (barrel organ) played. Ladies came from far and wide in the open wooden bus, so you had better bring a headscarf to the party, which was the meeting place for young women and men. Poor dancers usually danced at the edge of the dance floor, while the children watched and commented.

Crying whether you like it or not

A well-known resident of Tera Kòrá bieu, the old Tera Kòrá, from the period before the public housing was built, is Maya di Wichi, who was very devout and always had a candle burning at home before a statue of the Sacred Heart. She had a voice like a bell and was the resadó, the person who led the prayer sessions. When someone had died she came to pray at the house of the deceased for eight days (a novena), but she also held novenas at her own home. She also accompanied the pastor to Barber and Soto to pray, and if you needed someone to cry at a funeral – if not enough crying was done, it might look as though the deceased had not been loved – you could hire Maya as a yoradó, a ‘weeper’. Reportedly she did it with such devotion that tears sprang to your eyes and you had to cry along, whether you wanted to or not. Maya was also known for the bread and cake she baked in the stone oven in her yard.

Joe Black

Opposite the house of Poli and Yuya lived Dick (Hendrik), who sold tickets for the Táchira lottery. Another lottery seller in the neighbourhood was Nelson Farah, better known as Joe Black – who, by his own account, got that name because he had a soft spot for black women.

His parental home stood where the present snack bar and tyre-repair shop are, diagonally opposite California minimarket. As a child Joe Black was already selling lottery tickets from his bicycle, and later, because he had no driving licence, he had a chauffeur drive him around. For years Joe Black was one of the two biggest lottery sellers on the island, with one or more little offices in every bario.

Skol mitar mitar

Yvette Kopra, a schoolteacher, says that in 1983 the school by the church was split in two. The government of the time wanted a school and a religious building that were open to all faiths. The neighbourhood did not agree and wanted a Catholic school and church. After a petition it was decided to build a Catholic church, but the upper floor of the school building was set up as a public school, and on the ground floor came a Catholic school and also a few nursery classes. In the old days, if you talked about the skol mitar – mitar, the half-and-half school, everyone knew you meant the school in Tera Kòrá.

Annie Koenraad

It was decided that whichever school attracted the most pupils could take over the whole building. Because most residents were Catholic this was quickly settled, and in 1985 the school was named Kolegio Annie Koenraad. She was first a teacher, then became a nun and was even mother superior in Africa, where she taught novices. She became seriously ill, however, and died at the age of 56, just before the school was to be named after her. Another school in the neighbourhood is called Camalia, after a purple berry that used to grow abundantly in Tera Kòrá. People knew at once that you had eaten camalia, because it turned your mouth pitch black.

The first nursery school is named after the late Sheila Karel, the first head of the public nursery school in the neighbourhood. Meanwhile the government built a public primary school, which was inaugurated in 1988 and is named after the writer, poet and artist Elis Juliana.

On 27 October 1984 the church of Tera Kòrá was consecrated and dedicated to the Holy Spirit, and in the same year a crèche also came to the bario.

Densely populated

With a few thousand residents, Tera Kòrá is probably the most populous bario in Bándabou, mainly because of the construction of public housing, which first began in 1980. Between 1980 and 1998, 700 public-housing homes were built. So in the neighbourhood you can see the various models of public housing by Fundashon Kas Popular, which in recent years has also built apartment towers for higher income groups.

In the bario people speak of Tera Kòrá ariba, meimei and abou (east, central and west Tera Kòrá). But also of Tera Kòrá nobo for the new housing, and Tera Kòrá bieu for the older original homes, which stand mainly along the Kaminda Grandi – the Weg naar Westpunt.

Here, for example, stands the former house – in plantation-house style – of Tansha, who used to sell gasoline and kerosene. If you did not have enough fuel on the way to Westpunt, you could go to her. She ran a little shop that still had an old-fashioned set of scales. Her sister was one of the first drivers with a licence in the bario. The car she drove was so big that you could hardly see her sitting in it.

Museums

Tansha’s house is now lived in by Arjan Verkerk, who over the years has collected a large number of old furniture and household objects and displays them in Museo Labizjan. This museum is housed in the little knoek house in the same yard, directly behind the batido (fruit shake) truck at Tera Kòrá.

A labizjan is a wine bottle in a wicker basket, formerly usually shipped from France. Here the empty bottle was used to store water or to keep seeds.

Another special museum in Tera Kòrá is Curaçao’s only aviation museum, Museo Aeronautiko Kòrsou, at Kaya Karbonstein 155. It shows the extensive private collection of Cedric Bronswinkel on the aviation history of Curaçao, consisting of photos, models and other artefacts, and an extensive library, both on paper and digital.

Facts about Tera Kòrá

Shon Manuela was the owner of the former fairly large plantation north-west of Tera Kòrá, which was bordered by a slave wall. These lands have since been absorbed into Tera Kòrá.
Ba Sjako was a pit in Tera Kòrá in which drinking water bubbled up. People lived here in the time of slavery, and for a long time shards of kitchenware lay here.
Because of the strong wind on the north coast, Tera Kòrá was one of the first locations for a wind farm. The first three wind turbines were installed in 1993; there are now 10.
Tera Kòrá had several wells, such as pos patras and one at the Royer family’s. The well water in the neighbourhood often tasted salty because of the nearby sea, so people fetched drinking water at Duzu or all the way at San Pedro, where there are two freshwater springs.
Tera Kòrá used to have many oleander trees and pal’i lechi (rubber plant). The latter have almost disappeared because of the building of the first public housing. The tough pal’i lechi shrubs are missed, though: they served as a kind of crash barrier when drivers went off the road.
The musical group The Astronauts was founded at the house of the Fabias family.
Tera Kòrá also held the Fiesta di San Juan, with fire jumping as a fixed part. The ‘wooden’ buses of Ro and Bè brought visitors to the neighbourhood for the festival, but also provided transport to the school in Willibrordus and to town. Bè’s wooden bus still stands at René Rosalia’s Museo di Tambú at Sabana Baka.

Sources:

Buurtprofiel Tera Kòrá – a publication of the Ministry of Social Development, Labour and Welfare.
W. Renkema: Het Curaçaos plantagebedrijf in de 19^e eeuw.
A. Huijgens: Landhuizen van Curaçao.
P. Brenneker: Sambumbu – various editions.
The newspaper Nobo: Konosé bo isla, edition of 18 February 1995.

With thanks to Edsel and Carla Ricardo, Werkgroep Archeologie, Charles do Rego, Christel Monsanto, Richenel – Müs – Ansano, and the residents of Tera Kòrá and surroundings during a meeting at Mr Fabias’s home.