Tambu: Multiple Languages

I love this sign.  Heehee!  "Stop here and wait for the bell!"  It's at a (smaller) post office in Curacao.  It also illustrates how the island is a multicultural, multilingual environment.  Papiamento, Dutch, English, and Spanish are the main ones.  

One of my interviewees explained that there are novelty tambu songs in English and Dutch.  Tambu is also present in Venezuela, among other places.  It has a different name and there are some other differences I won't get into.  My point is that there is tambu in Spanish, too.

Tambu Info: Transcription

Transcription took a long time.  The interviewees spoke in Papiamento, which was harder for me to listen to and type verbatim than English would've been.  There are accents, for example, which I left out, choosing to capitalize the accented letter for the sake of speed. Also, I'm more familiar with English spelling rules than Papiamento ones---schools in Curacao started teaching Papiamento just after I left the island to go off to college.

So this is how I did it: two windows, one the video, one a word processor, and I just toggled back and forth between the two.  I think it took me about 1 hour to transcribe 10 minutes of speech, but I wasn't very precise about keeping track.

Tambu: So Many Tapes!

I haven't posted in a while since returning to California.  I had to get over the jet lag and then deal with the reality of being back in Monterey---reverse culture shock, if you will---and get caught up after a 3-week absence.

And there was a bit of procrastination.  You see, each of these tapes is 60 minutes long.  Not all of them are full of footage, but there's also all the footage on my back-up camera, which has a hard drive and doesn't use tape.  I don't know how many hours are on that.  Eek!

Tambu with Vocal Percussion

The idea is that tambu parties were against all morality and decency and were frowned upon by the elite and the Catholic church.  So you had these parties in secret, of course.  One way to keep them hidden was to use vocal percussion---imitate the drumming with non-sense words and the like.  In one of Rene Rosalia's books I read that the Jewish community held such a cappella tambu dances fairly regularly at one point.  And they would invite beautiful black women to such dances . . .

One place were wealthy Jews lived was Scharloo, and they had these parties, called "bokan"---"boka" means "mouth" in Papiamento---in the woods behind Scharloo.  The Scharloo houses were enormous and gorgeous, like this one.

Dutch Apartheid?

I haven't researched this, but right now it looks to me like the Dutch have bought lots of property and converted it into bed-and-breakfasts, and other tourism-related businesses.  Then they bring in Dutch employees and interns, so much of the money generated by those tourism businesses doesn't circulate in the local economy.

Mind you, I look like a local.  I went to a beach the other day and the parking lady spoke Dutch to me and didn't speak the local language.  A Dutch family saw me and thought I was the taxidriver they had called. 

I can see how some speak of neo-colonialism.  I confess, though, that I haven't sought out "the other side" to get a different perspective.

And what I'm saying may be unrelated to the sticker, but it's just interesting to note.


The traffic sign means something along the lines of, "Watch for pedestrians."

Tambu: Music and Dance of Curacao

Editing isn't quite where I'd like it to be, but right now I don't have access to my preferred software.

Would you prefer subtitles, or voice-over?

Making Tambu: Music and Dance of Curacao

Cables:
- to charge my video camera
- to charge my back-up video camera
- to charge the laptop (a rental)
- to connect my video camera to the laptop
- to connect my back-up video camera to the laptop

Each one gets it's own baggie.

Pretty crazy, eh?

Kickstarter Rewards from Curacao

Thanks again to all the wonderful people who contributed to my Kickstarter project so that I could come Curacao and make a documentary about Tambu.  Some contributors were promised a postcard from Curacao, so yesterday I mailed 18 postcards! 

"Posterijen," written in Dutch on the red mailbox, means postal service.  The newer ones have a modern logo on them.

Curacao Snack: Pastechi

My favorite snack: pastechi.  It's beef, cheese, chicken, or tuna folded into (savory) dough and deep fried.

Update: I've just noticed that there's a fly in the photo.  Hahaha!  I'm glad I didn't notice that before I ate the pastechi!

Curacao's Solidarity with The Netherlands

The inscription on the side of the block the statues is standing on is a reference to The Netherlands (occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II) being thankful for the solidarity of the Netherlands Antilles (now former) Dutch colony.  The statue is just outside the governor's palace.

Curacao Government Official Interview

No, that's not me filming a government official downtown---but it could have been!  We saw the interview on TeleCuracao, one of the two local television stations, that evening.  The man in the dark suit is the TV journalist.

The bright yellow buildings you see in the background are government buildings.

Curacao Money

In the downtown area you can use dollars in many stores, but on the rest of the island you'll use Antillean Guilders, "florin" in Papiamento, the local language.  The larger round coins are 1 guilder and Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands is on one side.  Remember that Curacao is not an independent country and the highest official is the Dutch Queen.


I love the square coins, but apparently they are becoming a rarity.


In the downtown area I've seen signs that say US$1 = NAFL1.85 sometimes it's 2 to 1.

A Traditional Lunch of Curacao

Stewed beef with funchi (cornmeal, water, and salt), fried plantain, and veggies.  This particular restaurant also adds avocado, but that's not traditional.

Kickstarter and Tambu of Curaçao

The beauty of using Kickstarter---as opposed to just asking your friends for cash or a transfer on PayPal---is that there is a goal and deadline.  If you do not raise enough money by the deadline, you lose all the money you have raised up to that point.  It would be a shame if your goal were $1000 and you raised $999 and never saw a penny of it.


Kickstarter is very user-friendly, but there were more steps than I had anticipated.  For example, I had to set up a merchant account on Amazon.com and fill out and submit a W9 form so Uncle Sam can tax me.


I created a basic e-mail explaining that I wanted to make a documentary and that I was using Kickstarter as a fundraising site.  I also talked about the goal and deadline, and all-or-nothing aspect.  Then I personalized the message with the recipient's name, and sometimes a few sentences more.


Many friends thought it was a spam letter.


Several friends didn't want to create a Kickstarter account and an Amazon account.


Several friends wanted to write me a check or give me cash, not understanding the point of Kickstarter.  I don't say no to checks or cash! 


Several friends thought I was crazy to risk losing everything I had raised.  Others thought I was insane for having my campaign in the weeks before Christmas, when every charity is asking for donations and people are low on funds.


But thanks to friends and acquaintances, I made my goal in exactly two weeks, with several days to spare.  I contacted colleagues in a local professional women's networking group, most of my Facebook friends, and lots of people from my personal e-mail list.  My donations ranged from $1 to $250 with most of them right $25, just like the Kickstarter website says!


At least three people knew before I did that I reached my goal: 1) a friend who was monitoring my progress, 2) the person who made the pledge that put me right at my goal, 3) his wife.  I was away on a Christmas caroling job! 


We live in marvelous, exciting times with such mind-blowing possibilities!

Tambu of Curaçao Kickstarter Project Page

Here's the video:





Here's the link:
(Click here.)