Source: CurAloe’s Facebook page.
Originally from Northern Africa, introduced by the Dutch in the 18th century, Curaçao Aloe (CurAloe) grows wild and is called SenteBibu in Papiamentu [Sente = 100, Bibu = alive] evidently you will live to be 100 if you take Curaçao Aloe (gel) every day!
… we’re also known to hang (rather stinky) fresh Aloe leaves from our doorposts (you know, like mistletoe) to keep diseases away…
Aloe Vera, among the top 10 most medicinal plants in the world, contains 75+ nutrients including vitamins, minerals, enzymes, amino acids, various fyto nutrients, and Gluco-Mannan, a complex polysaccharide that consists of “short” and “long” sugar strains (“short” sugar strains heal damaged human cells and activate the immune system; “long” sugar strains protect the human body against attacks from bacteria and viruses by eliminating them).
(Thanks to our dry and arid soil… !) Curaçao Aloe has an exceptionally high concentration of all of these nutritional substances.
Curaçao Ecocity Projects N.V. capitalizes on our natural Aloe resource and operates an environmentally friendly farm with 100,000+ Aloe plants. In 2002 it partnered with BioClin (a Dutch pharmaceutical company) and received funding from Senter (Dutch governmental institution) to build a production plant to extract Aloe Vera gel from leaves — filtering, stabilizing and processing into gel concentrate for export as well as development into proprietary skincare products (gel, body lotion, soap, sunscreen, shampoo, conditioner, insect repellent, body & face scrub, facial mask, night / day cream, lip balm, deodorant) and juice, all branded “CurAloe”.
Visitors are welcome at CurAloe’s farm; open Monday – Saturday 9 am – 4 pm. And CurAloe products are sold at their Riffort Complex shop as well online (they ship anywhere in the world!)
Ps: give your immune system a kick and try CurAloe’s 100% Aloe Vera Juice. (just 1 shot a day)… available at better pharmacies and supermarkets, their shop at Riffort Complex, and farm.
1000 Awesome Things About Curaçao 
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Wonderful to keep seeing more awesome things about Curaçao. Just saw this piece reprinted in the Amigoe Express. It strikes me that Sente is not a papiamentu word. “Shent’i” means “a hundred and some” and “sinti” means to feel. I prefer to look at the rest of the Caribbean for an answer. Sinkle Bible, Single Bible, Saint-a-Bible are common names for Aloe Vera in the Anglophone Caribbean. Since an older name for Aloe in the Caribbean is Sempervive, form Latin Semper Vivens (used already in 17th century England), meaning “ever living” it stands to think that this is one possible origin for “sinkle bible”, etc. Semper vivens was also used for other plants that lived long. It might very well be that the strange sounding “sente” in sentebibu came from the Anglophone Caribbean, and can be traced back to England.
See:
1. Bradley, Richard. New Improvements of Planting and Gardening,…) A. Bettesworth & C. Hitch, 1739.
2. Cassidy, Frederic Gomes, and Robert Brock Le Page. A Dictionary of Jamaican English. University of the West Indies Press, 2002.
You can peek through either one online through Google Books searches.
Wow! Thank you so much for your thoughtful research / feedback… I’ve posted it on our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/1000AwesomeThingsAboutCuracao. Please keep following our blog… And if you have pieces / topics you’d like to add, please don’t hesitate to email me at curacaoisawesome@gmail.com.
We have been to the Aloe Farm twice. I love their products, and am so happy that I can directly order from them and have them sent to the USA. 🙂
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