Joseph Thomas Hart, Short stories & Poems

in English and Papiamentu

INTRODUCTION

Dear reader,

I’m taking you to the Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao, just off the Venezuelan coast, from which the Dutch West-Indian Trading Company participated in the slave trading business during the 17^th & 18^th centuries.
As my short stories are based on the social and historic development of Curaçao, I think that you should know something about the role our island played in the liberation of Colombia and Venezuela as well as the social-cultural setup of this multi-racial community.
On the map of the American continent, you will see, close to the Venezuelan coast, three small islands that are part of the Dutch Kingdom: Bonaire, Curaçao and Aruba.
The Dutch presence in the Caribbean is further manifested by St. Maarten, St. Eustatius and Saba, which are part of the string of islands further to the north on the map.
During America’s war of independence, St. Eustatius – shortened to ‘Statia’ – played an important role by facilitating the sale of weapons for the fighters for America’s independence.
Curaçao’s close position to Venezuela and its magnificent Ana Bay harbour – a narrow, natural channel that opens into a wide inner bay, called ‘Schottegat’ –  proved to be an excellent location for the Dutch oil company – SHELL – to set up its refinery for processing the huge quantities of oil that the company imported from Venezuela, which did not have this kind of facility at the time, due to the regular unrest and political struggle, which proved to be a serious setback for the development of Venezuela’s enormous natural riches.
The country’s war of independence from Spain was planned in Curaçao by Venezuela’s famous hero, Simon Bolivar, who set up his campaign together with Curaçao’s heroes, Felipe Luis Brion and Carlos Manuel Piar, who also helped in getting the finances for this war of independence.
It’s not strange that there are quite a few families on our islands who have Venezuelan ancestors, as historically and economically our islands and Venezuela are closely related.
The social-cultural setup of the Curaçao community is as complex as its historical development.
The dominant group of the island’s inhabitants goes back to the slavery past, when Curaçao served as an important centre of the international business of importing and selling African slaves by the Dutch West-Indian Company  (in Dutch: De West-Indische Compagnie). Many of these slaves were set to work on the local plantations or served as ‘house’ slaves – predominantly women – where they not only took care of the house, but also became more involved with the family they worked for, by looking after the children of the landowner or the businessman in town. 
It’s therefore not so strange that in the course of the years the population of these islands – especially Curaçao – showed a multi-coloured mixture of this past, racially and historically as well as culturally and linguistically. 
Black is the dominant colour of the island’s population, followed by a mixture of many shades of brown, which illustrates the historic mingling of races, while ‘white’ is based on the descendants of former Dutch settlers and the immigration of Dutch government officials and businessmen and some European and American men of business, – amongst whom quite a number of Jews – who increasingly seek the advantages of Curaçao’s multi-coloured and multi-cultural working force as well as the Dutch rule of law.

Papiamentu
The local language of these ABC islands, Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao is Papiamentu, a mixture of their West-African past, Dutch of their former ‘masters,’ Spanish, because of the growing presence of Venezuelan workers and the business relationship with Latin American countries, as Curaçao and Aruba gradually developed into international distribution centres of European and American goods, while on both islands oil companies set up their refineries: SHELL in Curaçao and Standard Oil in Aruba.
The official language of the government and the law, as well as the language of instruction on these islands is Dutch, although Papiamentu has become accepted as the language of instruction at school as well as Dutch, while in Parliament Papiamentu has become the language of communication, but the law is still in Dutch.
English is gradually taking over as a second language, both because of the tourist industry and the internationally oriented commerce, in which English is the language of communication. Spanish is also quite important because of the proximity of Venezuela and the Latin American continent.
At school all four languages are taught, of which Papiamentu and Dutch are obligatory throughout our educational system, from the very beginning, while English has become the dominant compulsory foreign language throughout the secondary education, with Spanish closely following behind, but not compulsory throughout the school career. French is also offered at our high schools during the first three years, but then becomes a language of choice.

The short stories you are about to read are in English, which is the language I use predominantly as a former English teacher, but I also have short stories in our native Papiamentu (which I’ve translated into English). I think it’s my duty to also publish them in Papiamentu in order to contribute to the further development of our national language.
My first two novels – Election Dance and The Yard– were written in English. But then my publisher in Holland (In de Knipscheer) convinced me to rewrite them in Dutch – Verkiezingsdansand De Wooncirkel– and now I write novels predominantly in Dutch, in order to facilitate the Dutch and local readers, both here and in Holland: Kruispunt(already published) while Contrasten in Kleurand De Terugkeer are waiting to be published, hopefully this year (2022) and the year after next: two years between each novel as agreed upon.
BUT … as English remains THE international language and at school it is compulsory throughout our secondary education – HAVO & VWO (High schools) –  I prefer writing in English instead of in Dutch, which is why my short stories, that you are about to read, are in English, as I wrote most of them for my former High School students. 

Poetry
The first publication I ever made was a collection of 41 poems in 4 languages (the local ‘Papiamentu’, Dutch, English and Spanish): ENTREGA, published in 2000. I still write poems and have included some of them in this collection of short stories and poems.

After each short story I have placed a poem in its original language

What follows is the English version of the original short stories, followed by the Papiamentu version in order to promote our local & historical language with its African roots, which is the language of the three islands, close to Venezuela: Bonaire, Curaçao and Aruba.