Our secret language is almost back.

k

Somehow, inexplicably but terribly predictably, our time in Curacao has flown by.

But we haven't been to that Surinamese restaurant, the aloe plantation, or on an organized snorkeling trip!

But in less than a week we'll be back in Ecuador. Hostels. Almuerzos. Buses, backpacks, and bed bugs.

We'll lose many things, like the ocean (oh lordie, I'll miss this majestically swimmable ocean), but we'll gain a couple things back too. Our secret language, for one.

Worldwide, there's always a good chance the person in front of me at least understands English, and in Latin America Spanish is the overt language, which normally leaves Dutch, but not in Curacao.

But soon Dutch will be safe again, where, for example, a typical evaluation of a hostel might go like this.


T & K enter a cheap hotel.

T: "Buenas tardes, buscamos una habitacion, tiene un doble disponible?"
         (Good afternoon, we are looking for a room, do you have a double?)

Hostal staff (HS): "Si, quiere verla?"
        (Yes, would you like to see it?)

T: "Si, por favor."

 

They go upstairs and enter a plain room. There are a couple blots of crushed mosquitoes on the walls and an overriding odor of dirty laundry, but the bed is made and there is light coming in the window. K goes to check the bathroom while T peels back the sheets to check the mattress for bed bugs.

HS: "No, no, es muy limpio."
        (No, no, it's very clean.)

T: "Si, le creo, solo es algo que hago siempre." There are no overt signs of bed bugs, though the mattress is a tired gray color.
        (I believe you, it's just something I always do.)

K: Coming back from the bathroom, a carefully neutral expression on her face. In an open and airy voice "De badkamer is echt vreselijk. Het ruikt er slecht, de vloer is zwart met schimmel, en ik denk dat er bloed op de muren is."
        (The bathroom is really disgusting. It stinks, the floor is black with mold, and I think that's blood on the walls.)

T: Nodding, with a thoughtful but open expression. To HS "Hay wifi, o una cocina?"
        (Is there wifi or a kitchen?)

HS: "Si si."

K: "Serieus, het ruikt alsof iemand daar gestorven is."
        (Seriously, it smells like someone died in there.)

T: To K "Well, maybe we should go get something to eat and see if we can find our Canadian friends."

HS: Aha! They don't know I understand English! I have broken their codes!

T: "Vamos a almorzar, y buscar unos amigos. Gracias."
        (We're going to go eat lunch and look for our friends. Thanks!")

T & K leave, shuddering and thinking about where they can wash their hands. HS smiles and waves goodbye, feelings unhurt.

Is putting a word search in a blog about slavery too tacky?

Why would you, personally, go to a Caribbean Island? Got your answer? I'll go out on a limb and guess it involves a swimsuit, sunscreen, and a beach chair. Anything else? How about I put some guesses in a word search.

Make Your Own Word Search

You're welcome.

Beachy things like these make me want to buy the world a pina colada and offer to rub sunscreen on its back, and we have happily spent the vast majority of our time here within a stone's throw of the water.

But there is more to the island than its shores. I'll skip the tourism speech, but it would include words like music, art, and history. We tried that last one the other day.

The origins of the name Curacao are disputed, but the leading theory is that it comes from the Portuguese word for being healed. Sailors crossing the Atlantic would arrive in these parts sick with any number of ailments, including that beloved pirate stand-by: scurvy.

Ships would stop off here to recover, where there was some water, food, and less chance of catching an arrow through the scurvy gizzard. In early Portuguese maps the island is labelled "Ilha de curacao", basically "The Island of Healing."

But sailors weren't the only ones who were sick when they arrived here. This island was also a major hub in the slave trade, with the Dutch West Indies Company bringing about 500,000 humans through here by the time the last slaveship landed in 1788, and slaves arrived in worse condition than the sailors ever did. They were often kept in camps for months before being sold, and one of those camps was in Den Dunki National Park.

We filled every water bottle we have, got our cameras, and grabbed the key to the sauna-wagon. We parked across the street in front of a house whose 4 guard dogs were driving themselves into conniptions, and walked over to find that the park was...modest. More than modest.

There was nothing there.

The slave trade was abolished here in 1863, though less than 7,000 people were left to be emancipated. After that Den Dunki was converted to a "recreational swan park" for the island's elite, but whatever that meant, there's no sign of it now.

We found thorns, cacti, and barbed wire. Lizards rustled in the dry leaves next to a meager path which led us to some used toilet paper, plastic cups, and a rusting microwave. Beyond that the park backed up onto a suburban street without even a sign. It was basically an empty lot like you've seen behind the convenience store or next to the freeway, just hotter.

But somehow all those millions of dry thorns, hard ground, pouring sweat pouring, and lack of basic human sanitation were perfect, no? We could get just a hint of a possibility of a potential shade of a reflection of a memory of seeing a picture of a vague recollection of what it would have been like to be brought across the sea to sit and suffer in a dead place like that.

We tried our best to feel the vibes, but mostly I could just feel the drips rolling down my spine, and my tongue beginning to feel larger in my mouth. So we came home, driving through the streets were descendants live in rough neighborhoods.

While driving I tried to conceive of an alternate human history untainted by inhuman cruelty. If the conquistadors had brought gifts, cultural exchange, and respect? Business partnerships based in mutual gain and growth? Cooperation?

Maybe it's excessively dreamy, or just the dehydration setting in, but we went to see a place where humans committed evil acts, and then spent some time imagining a better path. At the end of the day, both are worthwhile.

What year is it and why am I so greasy?

I did something out of character tonight, and I don't even feel bad about it. I plead temporary insanity. And peer pressure. And a spirit of adventure.

K has a curiosity for experiences, and has been asking me to help her with a new one for awhile. At first I rejected it out of hand, but tonight it suddenly seemed like a good idea.

I knew where to go. We parked and went inside, under the gaze of the Colonel. Non-threatening in a cartoon, grinning way with his sharp stylistic shadows. Grandfatherly in a trustworthy, traditional way with his bow tie. Respectably dressed, yet down to Earth in his apron, and hip with a rockin' soul patch.

Marketing is a weird weird field.

There was a bit of a line, which was good because I had no idea what to order. I chose the smallest combo on the board. A 2 piece combo meal, please. The #15.

I misheard the cashier automaton's mumbled statement of the price, so instead of shrewdly paying exact change, I handed her an utterly random and pointless amount, causing her to pause momentarily in confusion, looking at the Curacaoan pennies in her palm, which look entirely too much like Lego coins, before shrugging and basically returning them to me.

With that awkward transaction behind us, K and I loitered a moment, actors bad at improv, not knowing where we were supposed to go next. The cashier shooed us away, so we shuffled the two steps left that were possible, aliens trying to look human.

Soon enough our number was called and a supremely efficient zombie with glazed eyes passed me a surprisingly small paper bag. Did I order enough food? I found myself unexpectedly eager to find out.

Back home K took a seat in the audience to see what KFC was like. As usual in the evening after we close the door to keep out the mosquitoes, the temperature was about 250 degrees, so I stripped down to my underwear and began.

The last time I ate KFC it was still called Kentucky Fried Chicken, President Reagan had convinced us that the Soviet Union hated us, and "trickle down economics" seemed like a valid notion. Ha! That's sillier than the haircuts.

The only time we went to the Colonel's establishment was after spending the day in a particular city park, and tonight, 20+ years later, I took my first bite and was back in Shoup Park. With the oddly sweet breading on my tongue I could see the concrete tunnel we used to run through at full speed. When the bizarrely smooth "mashed potatoes" slipped around on my palate I felt the grass in the big field where we played Capture the Flag.

The biscuit. Jesus, the biscuit.

The cole slaw finished the combo, though I couldn't remember it if used to be strips of shredded cabbage, or if it was always this sort of peculiar gritty pulp. Either way, it too was familiar.

Then suddenly it was over.

My greasy fingers held limply up in the air, I looked up to see K watching me, and suddenly I saw through her eyes.

Today was laundry day, and all my nice new boxer-briefs were drying on the rack, so there I was, on the floor in my old threadbare pair that used to be boxer-briefs, but after too many handwashings in too many countries, they are just sad droopy boxers now, eating fast food.

I had finally become the American stereotype her friends back in Belgium expected of me.

One of my nightmares for years, it wasn't actually that bad, though I can't say I'll repeat it any time soon. See you circa 2035, Colonel.

That cat just gave me a haircut.

I've heard your hair and fingernails grow faster in warm climates. I haven't done the formal science, but I may go as Wolverine for Halloween this year. (I know, Freddie Kruger would be more appropriate, but I don't look good in stripes.)

My hair is not far behind, so it was time for haircut country #11 today. Curacao.

I'd heard there was a place in the "Zuikertuin" mall, which means Sugar Garden in Antillean Dutch. There's neither sugar nor a garden there, but a colony of European brands and air that smells like the inside of the new computer box, a shoe store, preservatives, consumerism. Is this what a sweatshop in Shenzhen smells like?

I generally prefer funky places, like plywood boxes and psychotic barbers, but this was definitely a salon. But hey, why not, it's another experience.

I went inside and asked in awkward Dutch if I could get a haircut, but they were all booked up.

We went outside and spotted a second salon across the way. What luck!

I went inside and asked in awkward Spanish if I could get a haircut, but they were all booked up.

I decided to go to a barbershop I'd seen next to the road, but on the other side of the parking lot was a third salon.

I went inside and asked in awkward English if I could get a haircut...but they were all booked up.

I was thinking about my potential reception in the very "local" barbershop during Curacao's presently tense political climate, when I saw a fourth place next to the exit, a barbershop. Chipped paint. Aftershave. Manly.

I approached and asked in awkward sign language if I could get a haircut...and the distinguished elderly gentleman sitting outside nodded his assent. It was perfect! It was a "local" place, the default language was the Creole Papiamentu, but in a part of town were foreigners were common. Not too salon-elegant, but I wasn't worried about hepatitis.

Inside were four antique barbershop chairs, and K's eyes widened, her hand reflexively grasping towards where her camera should have been.

On the little shelf was a faded can of Old Spice, a straight razor, and a horsehair brush. On a naturally "distressed" end table were a couple sun-faded magazines that probably went out of publication years ago. A radio in the corner was playing slow jazz, which was oh-so-perfect.

The place was styling, but the centerpiece was the barber. He was my paradigm of a jazz musician, or maybe bolero, and as he picked up the buzzer I wondered, "do I recognize this guy from the cover of the Buena Vista Social Club?" (I didn't take my camera, so here's a picture of a car I love on the island with a similar vibe.)

He had low rectangular glasses, close cropped hair, one gold ring with a flat round top, and was effortlessly the coolest cat I have ever met. Cutting my hair.

As he worked I tried to figure out what instrument he plays. Drums? Too sweaty. Saxophone? Too...lungy. Piano? Yes. Those fingers snipping at my sideburns should be tinkling the ivories.

We didn't talk. I was afraid if I started I would mention Thelonious Monk, or ask for his autograph. A nameplate on the shelf said his name was Wilbert M. J...a. If I ever see an album for sale with that name, I'll buy it in an instant.

Gringo Radio

All I want to talk about lately is fish, but I'll give that a (short) break and tell you about the radio instead.

I mentioned that Curacao is filled with Dutch, Spanish, English, and the island's Creole: Papiamentu, all of which are represented on the radio. You can hear a true Hollander talk about what Angela Merkel thinks about Greece, click a degree down to hear a Cuban bolero, another to get calypso, one more lands on something that sounds kinda like Portuguese and is a local talk show about the elections in two weeks.

At the very bottom of the FM scale we found the gringo station. I am still not sure how I feel about it.

They have no DJ, ever, and just move from one gringotastic Billboard hit to another, fading in and out, and moving between decades and genres with delicious disregard for reason.

This evening I went to rent a movie for K to watch while I'm occupied tomorrow (neither I nor the worker lass could find Eat, Pray, Love in the chaotic assortment so I grabbed something with Jennifer Aniston, that's safe, right?) and heard a typical mix of songs.

We started with Oasis, again, and my oh my am I sick of that song. Then it was Mary J Blige, followed by Kings of Leon, Celine Dion, Nickelback, Sheryl Crow, Killers, the Bloodhound Gang, Akon, that dang Brazilian and his Mosa Mosa song, and ending with Aimee Mann.

Aimee Mann?

I have two theories so far to explain this station.

1: Someone bought several of those "Best of the __'s" collections in several genres, with emphasis on the 1990s. Now That's What I Call Music! This would explain some of the remarkable flashbacks they've given me. Lisa Loeb. Spin Doctors. PM Dawn. Macy Gray. Hootie and the Blowfish. Snow.

2. Someone stole the Ipods of an entire family, combined them, and plays it on shuffle. Mom gave us Alanis Morisette and Toni Braxton, Dad gave us Aerosmith and the Rolling Stones, Jenny misses her Jewel and Adele, and little Johnny is fiending for his Dre and Kanye.

Peppered in there are songs I've never heard, but I confess, I am always curious what we'll get next. Will tomorrow morning be Gangsta's Paradise or the Macarena?

(PS. The Macarena is every bit as awful now as it was when it finally went away in 1997.)

Drag queens of the sea make me feel welcome.

Our temporary home is a U-shaped complex of apartments around a pool, complete with several palm trees, and a small private beach. Pelicans and frigate birds fly overhead, and an utterly badass eagle of some kind just moved into the neighborhood, making all the wee birdies terribly nervous.

It's incredibly beautiful, but it pales in comparison to what's just offshore.

There is a low curving breakwater of volcanic stone over which purple crabs promenade and preen, tucking their shells just right so the occasional wave slides right over them. The other side extends into and under the sea, providing habitat for an aquarium's wet dream of fish.

I breaststroke unrepentantly with angelfish, butterflyfish, and damselfish. Stoplight parrotfish are an art gallery by themselves, armored silver patterns over red bellies in their youth, and growing into adults so flourescently bodacious only a child or Nature could come up with it.

I love the trumpetfish, hanging vertically in the water, still and oddly seductive, and am intrigued by the peculiar almost prismatic bodies of the smooth trunkfish.

The oddly shaped filefish, decorated with short lines that look like they'd glow in the dark seem like they know a secret. Fat porcupinefish mope around the bottom, and I'm pretty sure some of those curious little red ones that peek up at me are squirrelfish. They watch me so intently I can't help but feel they like me.

There are usually a few of the spectacular but invasive lionfish (photo from wikipedia), drifting like a gorgeous infection in delicate ferocity and calm menace among the rocks. (Our are usually bluish, maybe pterois miles.)

With their elaborate feathery spines they are too fabulous to be anything but the drag queens of the sea, but strong currents give them bad hair days to a comic and pity-inspiring extent as their venemous spines swing wildly in the water.

They eat local fish, have no predators, and breed monthly, such that just to keep the population from growing you'd have to kill 27% of them every month. Superhero biologists (the best kind) in Honduras are trying to train sharks to eat them, which is just plain rad, but since they're edible for humans, if you ever see them on the menu, go for it.

Schools of grunts look like the yellow paint can exploded, and don't forget the spotted drums (pic below), gobies, blennies, and puddingwives, and of course the slippery dicks, can't forget them.

There was an unflinching eye on what looked like a huge barracuda yesterday, but kind of leopard-spotted. A meter long and as thick as my leg, it hung motionless in the water, what big teeth you have, Grandma.

And last week, just for a moment, there were a dozen dolphins moving with ethereal grace through the same space where I swim, though my corporeal form was unfortunately limited to a chair at the time.

Curacao could actually learn a lot from its fish, who often move in large schools of at least half a dozen species intermixed. Their colors are to Brazilian carnaval as carnaval is to a fog bank, and they mingle utterly without prejudice as they feast in clearly audible crunchy-crackly satisfaction on the coral and algae.

We've met nearly no humans on the island, but the fish are damn welcoming.

I bet I could sneak in a quick swim before dinner...

Dying through every pore.

I am a sweater.

Not cable knit wool, but braids of salty liquid in stupid quantities. It's a talent, a horrible horrible talent, and someday I will travel to Norway to have a word with my ancestor's countrymen about my saline-exuberant heritage.

But for now all I can do is sit in the sauna that someone put in this black SUV under the Curacaoan sun in September, the hottest month in this demonically delicious climate. K's yoga class should finish any minute now. The sweat drips off my nose, my chin, my ears.

Any second now she'll come out that door. Drops fall from my jaw, my eyebrows, my forehead.

Of course, I could turn the car on and blast the air conditioning, but my stupid eco sensibilities opposed that when I arrived. It would only be a couple minutes, I should save the polar bears. Now I'm sweating enough to drown them, and I say drown, you charismatic Coke-selling bastards, drown!

It's been too long to give in now. I will make it! Sweat gathers and leaks off the edges of my eyes like tears, but all I feel is scorched irritation growing to rage.

I feel like Edward Norton in the chemical burn scene in Fight Club. I try to go to my cave, or accept the warmth and enjoy the oven-baked relaxation of a free sauna. But the only movement in the car are the drops sliding down inside my shirt, whose synthetic fibers may melt at any moment.

I try to reach peaceful acceptance and enjoyment, but my vikram meditation falters and increasingly all I want to do is march into that yoga studio and punch the teacher in her fire chakra for keeping class so long.

Trying to take my mind off it, I take out my journal and try to take some notes about Curacao. It's idle amusement as I watch my handwriting get messier, and my hand leaves wrinkles of water damage on the page. Is this dangerous? I hope the ambulance has A/C.

Am I delirious? The idea is faintly amusing. But I doubt it because I still want to go give that instructor a whack upside the lotus flower, but at least now I'm doing something. What was I doing? I don't know.

K is knocking on the window. Is it delirium or salvation?

It's her, and she didn't finish her water bottle.

It's salvation.