My fascination with Jews

All right I have read the Bible, at fourteen there was the version of the Bible which was in use and I read it. Luckily, we had to read the books in the  New Testament as part of the preparation for Confirmation class so I only had to cover the Old Testament to consider having read the whole book. I tried marking the verses so that I could develop some interest in it, however the New Testament held the fascination. Maybe it was the poetry of  the words, but I was in love with  the following verse from 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, 
they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.  
That was the closest I came to appreciating the Bible and what it represented. Faith, practice and the Bible were 3 separate entities.

The years passed and other preoccupations took place, and then my father died and I started visiting Curacao, not knowing anything of the history or even the geographical location of the place. On my way to Punda  where we visited almost every day, I saw a cemetery with angels, where every thing was a synchronised white. There was no grass and everything was neatly laid out. I was struck by how peaceful it was.
Our cemeteries were associated with scary stories of not passing by them close to six pm in the evening, probably a ruse to get us home early. So seeing a cemetery like that one was an eye opener. It turned out to be a Jewish cemetery.
Eventually, I discovered the Synagogue and started learning about the history of the people who worshipped  there,  their  rules in that men sat on one side and women sat on the other. Luckily for me, there was  no one  to see that  the first time I went, I sat on the male side. After that every time, I went to the Synagogue, I would  sit on the side for the females.  I suppose that some of the concepts started sinking in and I was respectful of the customs.
My poor mother would wait paitently while I sat on the bench, my head buried in my hands, like I did when I was small and my father was in church with me. Here I would swipe my feet in the sand, back and forth, not caring how dusty they became, aware that the salt in the sand was being used with the same purpose that we use salt in our blessings as Charismatics. There was no disrespect in moving the sand back and forth, playing with it as the floor was covered with sand and salt. There was relief.

The sandy floor of the Synagogue. 

Eventually I visited the Museum, as that took some working up to. By 2009,  I took pictures of various bits of information on the compound which I am sharing here:





The above scene depicts Jacob's Ladder....

Bread!

I love bread almost as much as I love bakeries. I have grown up  with the taste of bread which my mother made changing over time.  When I was a child, there was the discovery from a friend of hers of how to use the same dough that you used for loaves and  to shape it into balls to provide for individual amounts. This dough would expand  and provide a different type of growth. This was at a time when she was having challenges with six young to teenage children, children of both sexes.  Over the years, her bread  has nurtured young adults and  grandchildren many times over. There is the knowledge that bread is made on a Sunday and sometimes twice in the week and you can always have to take home with you. It can be eaten with butter or cheese or anything that you would like to eat it with. You knew that the taste and texture would change by the next day as slicing open a hot from the oven bread is so different from eating day old bread, so you eat at least one the night the bread is baked.
Over time, buying bread was a treat, a sneaky way to spend money and as such I have eaten hops from a fair number of places with an equal number of differences in type of bread. From the kind that is crusty and you spew a set of flakes/pieces of the crust with each bite, to the soft doughy kind that you tear or pull off a piece because your teeth are not sharp enough and your hand  needs to go in the direction opposite to your mouth with each bite, to the home made kind that is substantial enough that one goes a long way both in the time it takes to eat  it and the time it takes to move after eating.
I have eaten hops in Barbados discovering early one  morning years ago at a local shop hops with the equivalent of an accra as a filling.  The bread that was shaped the same way and was  close in size was a reminder of home, and  having eaten the accra, an acknowledgement that though we are alike, we are so different in our tastes.
The taste of white bread in Curacao is unique. There is a dryness to the bread that allows for crispiness in toasting, with the slices thin enough that you can eat three slices quite easily.  Chosing one  slice of each type of bread with   a nod to healthy eating in choosing dark brown, light brown and white on some days.  There is also the consistency of the taste and texture of the  breads from the supermarket to the hotel,  the taste of each bread is the same, guaranteed.
Back to home and  bread, there was the discovery of bread at a supermarket in St James where the height of the bread was  enough to make my eyes pop and becoming enarmored when the texture  inside was soft, good for toasting, with it being soft enough that if you made the slices too thin the bread was likely to tear. There is the bread at Jacquelines on the Avenue, that is close to heavenly with a certain white loaf coming in two sizes and acknowledging that for the taste of the bread, it is worth spending the price asked, as the taste and texture was worth it. Knowing that others felt the same way as these loaves would finish early in the evening.  I remember attending a workshop trying to improve myself and talking to myself that for the price, if the food was good, the content of the course could be so so, and  it would have been money well spent. The main part of the meal was  good, but the bread elevated it to another standard, warm, having recently come from the oven covered in a dish cloth, soft enough inside, great tasting and there was butter to go with it. What more can you ask for?

Copyright Jennifer Bailey

The many faces of Curacao

Over the years I have visited Curacao and I have observed the changes in the buildings, both style and state. At first there were several areas heading towards Punda where the buildings appeared to have been abandoned and the effects of unuse showed in grass/bush growing in the lots and roofs needing repairs. Not knowing the history of the country, over time I watched, to see if new areas under construction would be completed, with full occupation or would there be an increase in unused buildings.  Happily with my last visit in 2012,  there were several apartment buildings facing the sea which appear to be fully occupied and well kept with most of the other buildings which were constructed over the last eight years continuing to be well maintained with signs of occupation.  Without knowing all of the facts on the economy or having a full view of the country, I would be happy as a visitor with those factors as this  indicates several things:

1. There is recurrent expenditure taking place on an ongoing basis. This means that persons are contributing to the economy and seeing the maintenance of the buildings as important. This could imply that there is a fair portion of the expenditure taking place in the provision of services which are not financial in nature. These services are not directed towards tourism which  tends to be seasonal in nature but are  year round in nature. Also with the increase in rain in Curacao, there could be other changes in the services which are demanded as there will be an increase in grass as well as the other effects of moisture. 
2. The occupation of the buildings shows a possible change in the status of persons. Either there has been a change  in the ages of the population with a larger 'young work force" existing which can be financially sustainable or there has been a change which I am not familiar with, not being proficient in the languages.
3. From an accounting point of view,  the returns on investment with respect to buildings arise either from the rental income or the appreciation in value. Having a good cash flow contributes to taxes, and financing of repairs, while appreciation in value materialises only when the property is sold.  In some places if the building is sold within a year, the profit is subject to capital gains tax. Thus a building could be a cash cow or a drain as an investment. Also when returns on the stock market are good, the return on rental income is calculated to be much lower making an investment in a building a much less attractive option. There is also the outflow of funds to construct the building in the first place which creates  demands on the cash flow and which may not be recoverable over a period of time.

Just a few thoughts on a few things.

Copyright Jennifer Bailey