About

Logo by Marc Castillo.

On the brink of 30 and feeling unhappy in my advertising tech startup job, I decided to take a small leap of faith: I started a closed Facebook group and called it “1000 Awesome Things About Curaçao” inspired by Neil Pasricha’s popular 1000 Awesome Things blog.

Until July 2012 I had been on a high speed train going from academic to career achievement and hadn’t allowed myself to put much thought to where I had grown up. In fact I was very actively running away from it; at one point I went 2 years without visiting. And yet I had a persistent nagging feeling that I was in the process of losing a lighter, funnier, healthier, less anxious version of myself if I did not reconnect with my roots.

At first I only invited 20 Curaçao friends and shared a Tumblr link with 20 ideas. I defined “awesome” as “culturally curious” and gave the group a simple prompt: let’s try to get to 1000 things. Only a handful of these 20 friends actually live in Curaçao, most are in the Netherlands and US. We are in fact the brain drain (and do harbor guilt about that). Friends invited friends and those friends invited their friends. The social format turned submissions into a fun contest: we all wanted to one up each other with our awesome ideas. Before long I was hosting a hot summer party and serving Netto’s rom berde to 200 Curaçao fans, laughing out loud at my open office desk multiple times a day.

Word about the Facebook group reached Curaçao media. So I started to feel I could give it more meaning. In September 2012 I upgraded from Tumblr to WordPress and started a Facebook Fan page. I expected to get a similar friend-of-friend-of-friend following. But the page hit 1000 fans within the first week! (Not bad for an internet population of ~100K!) Radio journalist Maarten Schakel invited me on his Dolfijn FM show and featured me in Dolfijn’s magazine. (1.5 years later I returned the favor as Maarten himself ascended the ranks of awesome.)

This notoriety gave me the courage to approach one of Curaçao’s most prominent cultural foundations, Fundashon Bon Intenshon, about a sponsorship. They were a fan. So I kept going.

At this point I was traveling back and forth between Manhattan and Curaçao. My parents were very supportive. My mother even took a photography course to help me with the photos and my father mailed me several boxes of Curaçao memorabilia he had been collecting over the years. In addition to family, I was able to rekindle several old childhood friendships and regain that lighter, funnier version of myself.

In March 2013 1000 Awesome Things About Curaçao grew into a daily column distributed in a newly launched print newspaper for tourists: Amigoe Express. Amigoe Express and a partnership with the blog Uncommon Caribbean helped me prove that the content I was creating was resonating with tourists as well as locals and diaspora. In fact, my audience consists of 1/3rd Curaçao, 1/3rd Netherlands [where many Curaçao expats live] and 1/3rd US [where not many Curaçao expats live] and the Curaçao Tourism Board even used the “Awesome Locals” concept in one of their travel blogger campaigns that year.

More than anything I’m proud of 1000 Awesome Things About Curaçao’s sense of humor. Despite the most popular posts being about Food (#702. Saté ku Batata, #686. Johnny Cakes, #944. Bolo di Kashupete, #998. Pindasaus, #740. Boyo di Pan) and Sports (#586. World Cup 2014 Star Leroy Fer, #736. Tennis Champ Jean-Julien Rojer)… Baby Names OF ALL THINGS makes TWO appearances in the Top 10 most popular posts of all time. (They are hilarious and completely real.)

The best part about the work was meeting people who put their hearts into Curaçao’s creative and economic development. #658. Curaçao Cares Co-founder Deva-dee Siliee is now a friend and I think of Curaçao in terms of #703. writer Guilie Castillo’s description “Dutch, Antillean, Latin and several other passport-holders [belonging to 50 nationalities] cohabit in relative peaceful conflict, and Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu and several other religions smile at each other from the doors of their places of worship.” I love that artist Ariadne Faries gave me permission to use her photographs to illustrate Curaçao’s resourceful essence in all its #nofilter glory.

Most kindred of all I found #767. Sculptor Helen Martina who has been living in the Netherlands since 1999 where she has gained creative freedom through relative anonymity. (Being the daughter of a former Prime Minister or any prominent family can be a bit stifling on a small island!)

I’m particularly proud of this beautiful review by journalist Jeroen Jansen. And yet, the project did carry financial challenges. Despite receiving a handful of sponsorships from companies who considered the uplifting project good for Curaçao from a social responsibility perspective, my sponsorship $ came to the equivalent of an entry-level journalist’s salary.

So I decided to pivot my corporate career in business development to new purpose: help solve the digital media monetization conundrum.

I was lucky to land a job on the business team of the Huffington Post in fall 2013. Going from a small island audience of 20,000 to some 100 million in Arianna’s orb was quite exciting and served to deepen my learning.

Curaçao is one of the most beautiful and culturally diverse places on earth, home to incredibly creative, resourceful, athletic, entrepreneurial and altruistic people.

I hope you enjoy this site as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Much love,

Carolina Gomes-Casseres

Photo by Alessandra Agurcia in fall 2013 when I joined HuffPost.