Culture is carried by people. But sometimes, there is someone who does not just carry culture, but weaves it into everything she does and into every life she touches. Someone who connects the past and the future, ensuring that traditions and history continue to bring people together. Someone like Cenaida van Dinter.
In your professional life, you ran your own hair salon for many years and styled the hair and makeup for countless women for weddings and other special occasions. You were a renowned creator of the so-called ‘boekels’, traditional bridal hairstyles. That craftsmanship and dedication made you a trusted face for women who, at pivotal moments, wanted to feel connected to their culture.
You brought that same dedication to education, where, as an after-school care teacher, you not only guided children but also had them dance and sing to the island’s traditional music, allowing them to feel what it means to be part of a rich cultural tradition. To be proud of it.
Yet, your most visible and grandest significance to the culture of Curaçao lies alongside and after your professional career. Captivated as a child by the fabrics and colors of headscarves in the streets of Punda, you have dedicated a lifetime of effort, love, and knowledge to ‘mara lensu’—the traditional art of tying and wearing headscarves.
What many considered an everyday custom, you recognized as a tradition that needed to be preserved as an expression of Curaçao’s identity. With care, precision, and creativity, you have not only preserved this art but have also deepened and enriched it for more than fifty years.
In your quest for the origins and meaning of headscarf tying, you visited older generations and brought that knowledge to life in your lessons. In doing so, you became not just a culture bearer, but also a collector and guardian of that knowledge.
You do not merely preserve; you are also an innovator. You introduced a new style, the Papilon Modèrnu, which gives the traditional headscarf a contemporary form that aligns with changing fashion trends. Furthermore, you were—together with Ingrid Louis—the initiator of the annual ‘Mara Lensu’ competition, which has become a landmark cultural event in Curaçao.
As a co-founder of initiatives such as Landish Curaçao, Krea Headwraps, and Fundashon Mi Identidat, you provide culture with a space to be shared, learned, and celebrated. You bring young and old together, making culture tangible, recognizable, and truly theirs.
Your commitment to culture reaches far beyond the classroom or the island’s borders. In your neighborhood of Parera, you organized activities for children and residents for years: from vacation programs and cultural events to traditions like Carnival and ‘Parera Day’. You also championed Curaçao’s culture internationally, including in Cuba and Suriname, where you collaborated on cultural exchange and knowledge transfer, allowing the headscarf traditions of both Curaçao and Suriname to be passed on.
For anyone wishing to learn, you remain readily available; your new masterclass in traditional headscarf tying is a powerful testament to that.
What makes it so exceptional is not just what you do, but how you do it: with dedication, discipline, and love for your community. Not out of obligation, but because you believe in the profound value of keeping cultural heritage alive and passing it on.
Today, we express our immense gratitude and recognition for your contribution to culture with the Cultuurfonds Award. For Cenaida van Dinter—a woman who preserves, passes on, deepens, innovates, and breathes continuous life into the traditions of Curaçao.
I am now pleased to give you the floor, where Hans Oosters, King’s Commissioner in Utrecht and chairman of the Cultuurfonds Utrecht, will present you with the Cultuurfonds Award.