Tourism has changed life on Bonaire, but not as dramatically as people outside might imagine. This is still a quiet island—sometimes too quiet for us. There are not many bars or discos.
Tourism has brought some small restaurants and a fast-food place that did not exist before. It has also created new training programmes, although most prepare people for jobs inside tourism.
If we want a really good professional career, we usually still have to study abroad. Our parents say primary education became worse after the nuns and friars stopped running the schools. We cannot compare it ourselves because that happened before our time.
Tourism has changed family life more than the streets. Parents working in hotels and other visitor businesses have irregular hours. Children spend more time away from home because their parents may be working early, late or during weekends.
Younger children now have after-school care. Older students can go to a youth centre where they can skate, use computers, play basketball or get help with their homework.
We do not have much direct contact with tourists in everyday life. Watersports are one exception. Some of our friends are very good windsurfers and have sailed faster than visiting Dutch surfers.
After meeting on the water, we went out together in the evening and discovered a completely different side of the tourists.
That kind of contact is different from seeing somebody beside a hotel pool. We meet as young people with a shared interest, not only as residents serving visitors.
Sixth-grade students take part in a project called Hello Tourist. They spend a night in a real hotel room, which feels like a special experience when you live on the same island but normally only see hotels from outside.
We think the exchange should also work in the other direction. Tourists could spend a night in a Bonairian home. It is already possible to arrange this, and it could be just as enjoyable as staying in a luxury room.
They would learn how people actually live here, eat with a local family and experience the island away from the usual tourism spaces.
When visitors stay in our homes, we can benefit directly instead of only watching tourism happen around us.
The payment would go to the host family rather than disappearing into a larger hotel business. It would also create a more equal kind of meeting.
We do not want tourism to make Bonaire less quiet or turn it into an island full of nightlife. We would rather see more genuine contact—on the water, in our neighbourhoods and inside the homes of people who live here all year.