Wednesday, March 05, 2008

The Bonaire Heineken Jazz Festival 2008 Looks to Be a Success

Despite the small scale of our island, it appears that the Bonaire Jazz Foundation will once again succeed in planning a fantastic Bonaire Heineken Jazz Festival, which will take place May 22nd through 25th.  Considering the large number of well known jazz musicians that want to participate in the concerts, it is obvious that Bonaire as a whole, and the festival in particular, are becoming well known in the international world of jazz. This year’s Jazz Festival will be the fourth annual event. 

Although the festival’s program has not been finalized yet, the Jazz Foundation has announced that two internationally well known artists will appear.  Izaline Calister (certainly very popular in the Antilles and Aruba) who, with her orchestra, will perform the main act on opening night, May 22 and also on Friday, May 23. In addition, Willie Martinez, a top jazz artist from New York, will also perform several main acts with his sextet. Negotiations are still taking place with several other international, Antillean and local jazz bands.  The Bonaire Student Band, which proved to be such a success last year, will again be part of the festivities this year.

After the opening evening with Jazz and Poetry in Fort Oranje, the next two concert evenings will take place at the Plaza Resort, followed by a final jam session during the Sunday lunch at the Divi Flamingo Resort.

As in prior years, Heineken will be the title sponsor of the event, and, although the sponsoring has not been completed, it can be announced that Remax and Littman’s will be main sponsors, Maduro & Curiel’s Bank Bonaire will sponsor Izaline Calister and that Plaza Resort, Rocargo, Russel Insurance, Habitat, André Nahr and Playa Trading have all given their support.

Additional details about the programming, the musicians, etc. will be announced at a later date.  (Source:  Bonaire Jazz Foundation)

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Bonaire’s STINAPA Spearheads Campaign to Get Back to Tap Water

On Bonaire, where water is made through a salt water desalination process, you can safely drink from the faucet.  The water tastes great and is refreshing.  Yet each day, thousands of bottles of water are used and then the plastic bottles are casually discarded.

Many people don’t think about how that extra garbage is being handled, but these hundreds of thousands of plastic bottles are dumped in Bonaire’s landfill (which is very close to its maximum capacity), where they can take up to 700 years to disintegrate.  Bonaire, being a small island, doesn’t yet have facilities for recycling plastic bottles.

Since 2008 has been designated as the International Year of the Reef (IYOR 2008), STINAPA and the Bonaire National Marine Park want to motivate people to drink tap water when on Bonaire, instead of buying bottled water.  Selibon N.V., the sanitation company managing the landfill, does not yet have an alternate way to process our waste.  While they are searching for a solution they can afford, we (residents and tourists alike) all have an obligation to reduce the pressure on the landfill by simply reducing the waste we produce.  One way to do this is to stop buying bottled water and begin drinking from the tap instead.  Visitors, who are “on the road” diving or sightseeing, are urged to re-use empty plastic bottles and re-fill them with tap water.  (Source:  STINAPA)

Monday, March 03, 2008

BWC Half Marathon and 7K Fun Run Scheduled for April 6th, 2008

Bonaire Wellness Connexions has recently announced a new event, scheduled for April 6th, 2008, which will include a half marathon and a seven-kilometer fun run.

To view more information about the day’s events or for instructions on how to register, view or download the Marathon Instructions by clicking here (in PDF format).  (Source:  Bonaire Wellness Connexions)