Friday, December 31, 2010

New Year, New Bonaire

There is lots of newness to be had here on Bonaire as we enter 2011. I just saw a good online writeup about the Caribisch Nederland, which is what Bonaire is part of now. We usually just call it the Dutch Caribbean, but "Caribbean Netherlands" shows signs of emerging as the official English way of saying it.

Seems to me that "Caribbean Netherlands", with Caribbean being the adjetive, seems to imply that this is a Caribbean part of the Netherlands, while Dutch Caribbean with Caribbean being the noun seems to allow Bonaire to continue to be a Caribbean island with a Dutch flavor. A generation or so from now, that subtle nuance could make a big difference.

If you want to learn more about the new tax and social structures here, loads of official documents have recently been posted online: in Dutch, Papiamentu, and English. If you download and pour though all of them, you'll know as much as we do. More actually, since I haven't read all of them yet. But we will, we will.

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