WILLEMSTAD - “Ma'am, how long ago did your kids eat?” Coraline Kooistra asks, while she puts a food package on the table in the kitchen. The neighbors had sent the aid worker to this house. In the corner, she saw two skinny little boys, one of four and the other of seven. Very thin, dark spots under the eyes.
“Exactly two weeks ago, the children last ate bread,” says their mother. “At that time there was no coronavirus and the school was still open.”
Coraline Kooistra is a social worker and works at the Crisis Bank of the Foundation Against Child Abuse in Curaçao. “This woman is on social assistance and occasionally cleaned the house for a gentleman nearby. But the gentleman had sent her home because he lost his job himself.”
Curaçao is on lockdown. People are obliged to sit at home. Shops are closed, except supermarkets and pharmacies. If you have a car, you can do your shopping twice a week. When you are allowed on the street depends on the letter on your license plate. Air traffic was shut down on March 13, exactly three weeks ago.
The tourists still present at that time have now left the island. Curaçao lost its main source of income. The result: 16,000 people in the tourism sector have lost their jobs. The government is looking for solutions.
The casual employees, who do not yet know in the morning whether and how much money they will earn today, are the first victims. 1300 have since reported to the Ministry of Social Affairs for support. But many don't know their way around that world or are illegal on the island. An estimated 15,000 Venezuelans live underground, afraid of being arrested.
THIRTEEN CONFIRMED INFECTIONS
Curaçao seems to be doing well in the fight against the virus. There are only thirteen confirmed corona patients in a population as large as Amersfoort (the Netherlands). By comparison, that city has nearly three times the number of confirmed infections.
The number of patients is also not too bad compared to the other large Antillean islands, Aruba and Sint Maarten. Aruba has 60 patients out of 106,000 inhabitants and it suddenly goes fast on Sint Maarten this week, from six cases on Monday to more than 20.
According to the government, the relatively low figure on Curaçao is due to the rapid introduction of strict measures. In the beginning there was a lot of support for that policy, but according to Coraline Kooistra that will not be long.
“New measures on the news. The people I see need food. They don't care about all those rules. They don't even care about corona. They want to eat. They have to eat. That's it. Food is now the primary concern. We really don't make it better if we put these people aside. There are so many.”
Ivonne Christiaan of the Shimaruku Curaçao Foundation has been collecting funds to feed school children in the neighborhood since 1996. “Not every child gets enough at home. Due to government measures, the neighborhood center is inoperative, so that the children no longer have any meals.”
DISTRIBUTING FOOD PACKAGES
Her foundation will distribute food packages in the neighborhood. Around fifty families depend on this. “We are now busy purchasing the goods but are still waiting for exoneration so that we can bring the food packages. That is not very fast. Other aid workers, such as the food bank, also have problems with this.”
Long lines are now forming in front of the supermarket. Hundreds of meters long. Even now three-quarters of all cars are not allowed on the road. A business owner who is patiently waiting - he had to close his restaurant on the touristy Mambo Beach - says: “These are people who can still buy something because they have work or have some money in hand. But what's going to happen next week? Then people also go out on the street who have nothing left, whether they like it or not. I fear the worst.”
