The rhythm, the cadence, is hypnotic. The late-afternoon sun helps: scales flying off the fish flash in a silvery, summery gust. Three young men fall into a soft, steady rhythm — fish, knife, entrails — chop, chop! The day winds down at the pier, and Curaçao — this small, arid island off the northern coast of Venezuela, part of the former Dutch Antilles — now stands out as one of the best ideas conceived since the Big Bang; at times, it may also seem like the opposite: a Caribbean theme park for Europeans and Americans. But not now — it is a kingdom of physical well-being, a haven of tranquility, the soul of the slow world. Guts, scales, salt water, milky sun, rhythm, rhythm, rhythm.
Of the three men, the biggest one works with his legs in the water, which is as clear as in fairy tales, despite the broth of livers, gonads, and intestines oozing from the fish.
“I’ve liked fishing since I was little. I also do carpentry, but what I like most is this,” he says. At 25, Ango Beers is a paradox on a global scale. While the world races forward and strives for more, he plays with light and a knife. He could have studied in Rotterdam or The Hague, like so many of his compatriots, but he chose to stay with the fish, his friends, and the sunsets. And soccer, his other passion. “This year we’re among the best in the tournament. Last week we won 3-1,” he says, happily.
Beers plays center back for Willemstad CF, one of the 10 teams in the island’s top division and also one of the oldest at 87 years, part of a surprisingly rich ecosystem. Curaçao, which this summer will send its national team to the World Cup for the first time, has 30 teams across its three divisions, one for every 5,000 inhabitants, one for every 5.8 square miles. In eternal competition with baseball, soccer stakes its claim in the heat of the global event. It’s all records: the smallest country to go to a World Cup, the most uneven World Cup debut (Curaçao opens against Germany), the most agonizing qualification in the region’s history…
Everyone at Willemstad remembers the now-famous Tuesday, November 18 last year, when the national team, somewhat weakened without its star player, Tahith Chong of Sheffield United, was fighting for its place in history. It was an unmissable opportunity. Unusually, Curaçao’s federation, Concacaf, had six spots for an expanded World Cup, from 36 to 48 teams. With Mexico, the United States, and Canada — the host nations — excluded, the Caribbean and Central America would fight for the other three spots. There were obstacles in the way and their rival, Jamaica, was one of them. Curaçao had a mission: don’t lose.
The match in Kingston was rough and intense. Jamaica struck the post three times, the last in the 86th minute. The referee awarded a penalty in their favor in the 94th minute, then overturned it, stretching the game past the 100‑minute mark. In the end, the game finished 0-0. That series of events triggered an extraordinary phenomenon on the island: the momentary stilling of the hearts of its 156,000 inhabitants, followed by their sudden racing, which erupted in a roar that could be heard all the way to Lake Maracaibo. Curaçao had qualified for the World Cup.
That night the island was a party, as shown in videos taken by Pedrinho de Sousa, Willemstad’s goalkeeper, who watched the match at the ground’s bar, a venue lined with trophies and photos of past glories, among them Vurnon Anita, an exquisite midfielder for Ajax and later Newcastle — where he worked under Rafa Benítez — who came through the local youth ranks. Owner of a thriving jersey business for local teams, De Sousa pulls out his phone and plays the videos of the agony: the bar’s TV, Jamaica battering Curaçao’s defense, the shouts, the post, the penalty and, finally, the glory. “Look, look!” says the keeper as he plays the clip taken after the final whistle: he runs out of the bar toward the pitch and doesn’t stop until he reaches the center circle, where he collapses and cries.
The refinery, the yellow shop
Traffic in Curaçao is a bit like Spain’s Ibiza in August, snaking lines of traffic desperately seeking beach clubs, white sand, turquoise water, the postcard idyll. Every morning, Willemstad — the capital — and its surroundings burst into frenetic activity. Tourists leave their hotels and head to a thousand places — for example, to the city center, an open-air decor shop, a World Heritage site, with one peculiarity: the residents are gone, and the houses now only hold shops and restaurants. From the mobile pedestrian bridge that spans the bay, you can see bows and sterns of cruise ships so huge they would make David Foster Wallace quake.
“Although it’s small, the number and size of the roads make it seem larger than it is. You never feel trapped,” says Aldrich Hermelijn, editor of the Curaçao Chronicle, the island’s only English-language paper, with a laugh one morning. The ring road around Willemstad is an example, as is the huge bridge that crosses the bay a little inland, from which you can see the old refinery, the nerve center of economic activity until the middle of the last decade. Near the capital, multi-lane road intersections are common. The infrastructure that served the oil industry last century now serves the new El Dorado — the euros and dollars brought by an increasing number of visitors.
Activity goes beyond the motorized chaos of travelers. There is plenty to do. Painters, bricklayers, street sweepers, chambermaids, tour operators… The hive hums with movement, although many take it easy. Producing is not a matter of life or death, thanks to the motherland, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, benefactor and protector of Curaçao and five other Caribbean islands. Curaçao is part of the kingdom and its inhabitants, in addition to a passport, have the right to a minimum living subsidy of just over $200 a month — enough to get by if one’s ambitions are modest. Of the locals interviewed, almost none complain about the colonial oversight, ratified in a referendum 15 years ago with strong popular support.
In a bright yellow shop in downtown Willemstad, 51-year-old Wendell Silvane downs a beer. He sits on a chair on the terrace, a sight repeated across the island: people seated next to small businesses with the constant promise of a cold drink. He’s a tourist taxi driver but doesn’t seem in any rush to find customers. He lived in the Netherlands for a while, worked for an internet company, then went to Spain, lived in Alcalá de Henares, Barcelona… Now he spends his time here, between trips. Asked about the World Cup and the Blue Wave — the national team’s nickname — he shrugs. “We want to reach third place,” he says, but doesn’t clarify whom in the group they might beat to that target. Germany, out of the question. Then there’s Ecuador and Ivory Coast… “And we’re also going to support our referee from here, Danny Makkelie,” he adds.
It’s hard to know how enthusiastic people really are about the national team. Between the gloomy, the lukewarm, the moderate and the hopeful, the tour-operator logic wins out: what matters is the experience. And of course there are those who couldn’t care less about soccer.
In the village of Tera Kora, on the island’s westward road, a bunch of idlers enjoys beers on an ordinary afternoon. Kony stands out among them. He’s 47, sports a three-day beard and an indelible smile. “I don’t like soccer, I like money!” he laughs. As a young man, he went to try his luck in the Netherlands, like so many. He started dealing and things escalated. “I made more than 50 drug runs to Europe until they caught me in Spain in 2004. I had 800 grams of cocaine in my stomach.”
His story reveals the hidden reality of sun-and-beach tourism: drug trafficking to Europe. The only good thing is that in Curaçao it’s not violent trafficking. Kony spent four years in a prison in Palencia, Spain. From that time he remembers the Ronaldinho of Barça, inevitably, and an Andalusian girlfriend. When he got out of prison, he returned to Curaçao and started with marijuana, an activity that left a large scar on his abdomen; in 2011 he had emergency surgery when his intestine refused to evacuate the ingested weed. “Yes, I suppose I’ll watch the matches, but I don’t know.”
Kluivert’s project
A decade ago, then-national team coach Patrick Kluivert organized a match that settled, once and for all, a debate that had been growing in the previous months. “On one side were the players Kluivert called up for the national team; on the other, the best born on the island,” says Gilbert Martina, president of the local football federation. The former Barça and Valencia striker, an idol of 1990s Holland teams, had come to the island where his mother was born to impose a substantial change. Curaçao would no longer call up only natives but also the diaspora. Some disliked it, others didn’t know what to think. The rumble existed and had to be faced.
“The local-born side lost 7-1,” says Martina, 54, a man who exudes calm and balance. “You can tell there’s no professional soccer here. And everyone saw the difference.” Kluivert was the one who opened the door, in the opposite move to that of European football. If major post-colonial nations like France and England, even Spain, call up the children of immigration, why not them? It was difficult, but over the years players of merit joined, such as Chong, who came through Manchester United’s academy; goalkeeper Eloy Room, a savior in the World Cup qualifiers; Sontje Hansen, a sharp winger currently at Middlesbrough, and Armando “El Comandante” Obispo, a reliable center back.
The problem now is that native-born players are scarce — only Chong was born in Curaçao. Anyone might think the issue is convincing the population that this is their team and that it represents them. But Martina, a professional manager, former executive of the island’s main insurance agency, hospital administrator and, in between, overseer of the refinery’s finances, doesn’t seem very worried. “There’s been a love affair with the national team,” he says.
It’s night in Curaçao and Payo and his friends are playing indoor soccer on an artificial-turf pitch. Passes and dribbles follow to the rhythm of Colombian DJ Kybba, who friends blast from a huge speaker. Payo is the nickname of Brenton Balentien, who founded the national team supporters’ club 11 years ago. He’s a popular figure on the island because he often paints his face and beard blue in homage to the national jersey. Now he does coffee ads, car rental ads, even spots for a giant Carrefour supermarket.
After the game everyone gathers beside a corner store. They’re happy, joking, speaking Papiamento, the local creole, at full speed. In June they’re going to Houston to see the match against Germany. Some will also go to see the final group game, against Ivory Coast, in Philadelphia. “What am I doing in Houston!” someone laughs, about a travel plan that is unusual on an island of stay-at-home vacations. Payo and his people are preparing drums and megaphones. There won’t be many of them, but they will probably be the happiest group on planet Earth for a few days.
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