Perception

Perception

4 October 2026

On Saturday, I have breakfast out with my better half. We are there just after eight. Usually, we are always at a different place. But this morning, we are back at the recently restored market. I say to her: we must make sure we don’t become regulars. What makes the market so attractive to me is not that it is clean and quiet. Or that the food is good and relatively affordable. But the fact that it is just about the only place where you can be sure that you are in Curaçao. Everyone sitting there is from the island. Even the woman from Santo Domingo who sells sandwiches has obviously spent almost her entire life here. You don’t feel like you are on vacation in your own country. You hear only Papiamentu. Every now and then, a tourist couple comes by and has something to eat as well, but you feel that they are the guests and not the other way around.

As we leave, I walk over to a senior trade union leader to say hello. He says to me: “I’m glad to see you among the people. Come sit with us next week.” I remark that we could very well do that, but that we vary where we have breakfast. And I tell him that I always feel perfectly comfortable among the people; I am part of them. He laughs and remarks that he sees me at De Heeren and Deli France. (Apparently, our people don’t go there.) I do indeed have a coaching session once a week at De Heeren.

My point is that the man has a perception of me and suffers from cognitive dissonance, which he tries to resolve by insisting that I don’t go where everyone else goes. But that is simply how it works.

Miguel Goede