Regatta Break

The first quarter has nearly ended and we are on a week long break. The vacation is known as "regatta break," but there is no sailing going on here.... Apparently there is an annual regatta in Aruba during this time. Many people travel there to sail or spectate.

I am staying in Curacao this week, relaxing, exercising, cleaning, and doing a bit of work. Yesterday, one of the other new teachers and I spent the day pretending to be tourists.

We visited the coin museum, which has old money dating from the island's early inhabitants. The pieces range from shells to beads to metal coins. Some of the most curious coins were pie shaped quarters. The museum literature said that the island had a metal shortage and so decided to create quarters by slicing larger coins.

The next museum we stopped at was the Kura Hulanda musem. The Kura Hulanda is a beautiful hotel located at the site of an old slaveyard. To recognize the horrific past of the site and the slave trade in general, this museum places special focus on the West African empires and the African slave trade. Its collection is small but suprisingly extensive. Some pieces are stunningly beautiful, others are terribly disturbing.

Our final stop was the synagogue. It is located in the heart of Punda and is the oldest synogogue in the Western Hemisphere in continuous use. The first Jews to come to Curacao were Sephardic Jews from Holland. Initially, they worshipped in a house that was converted into a worship space. Eventually, they constructed the synagogue that stands today, using limestone and coral. I found the floor the synagogue's most notable feature. It is entirely covered in sand!