Monday (or the one in which we are misled, but in a good way)

On Monday, anyone would have believed it was the rainy season. The sky absolutely unleashed on us, which put a bit of a damper on our plans for the day--plans which we thought were to visit a cigar factory which would, like NACAS, be an example of a local, Dominican business which had grown into a global success.

This was not at all the case. Instead, we showed up at an state-of-the-art, borderline opulent complex which was basically halfway between the Padres´ facility and a YMCA. We were greeted by a group of children holding Dominican flags standing under a very large open-air (but covered, thank God) performance space. Waiting to perform were several kids in karate gis. We were all a bit confused until a representative from IDDI explained to us that this was not, in fact, the cigar factory of the world-renowned Arturo Fuente, but was rather a school and community center whose construction and operation was funded by fans of Arturo Fuente´s cigars known as the Cigar Family.

It was an impressive facility--it had the aforementioned performance space, a school for kindergarten through the eighth grade, a baseball field, and basketball and volleyball courts. Everything was absolutely top-of-the-line. The facility would not have looked out of place in a well-to-do American suburb.

After an introduction from an IDDI employee, the students performed for us. The karate was entirely unexpected--no one thinks of karate when they think of the DR. It turns out that the Dominican children had been taught karate by a member of the Cigar Family who had come down to the DR to visit. This is how many of the activities at the Cigar Family´s community center come to be--family members coming down and sharing their skills in courses at the center. This does seem a little odd, but these incongruencies have become somehow less jarring and unsettling to me over the course of this trip. Who cares if the people don´t really need to learn karate in the same way that they need, say, better sanitation. If that´s what someone can provide then, as long as the community wants to learn, it seems that any negatives are greatly outweighted by the positives. This point was driven home by the IDDI employee´s story of Juan, who is now a 17-year-old brown belt and says that without karate there is no doubt in his mind that he would currently be in jail and not in school. (I find it funny that Yuma, who is a blackbelt, said of these performances, `These kids would not be black belts in Japan.´)

Do I still have questions about the insidious nature of cultural imperialism? Yes, absolutely. But I´ve also seen more fforts with genuinely good intentions and (more importantly) good outcomes on this trip than I ever imagined were existed. Almost none of these outcomes would exist if their undertakers had let fear paralyze them--maybe Sammo´s comment on my first post is right. It seems that perhaps some degree of recklessness might by necessary in order to engender substantial positive social change.

We then were the audience for two more performances--a humorous short play by some boys from the school and a ballet recital by a group of young girls. Both were, while unpolished, incredibly touching.

It is also worth noting that there would have been more performances (these people really pulled out all the stops for us, and for that we were certainly grateful), but they didn´t pan out because, due to the rain (which continued to soak us as it was swept under the canopy on the wind during the students´demonstrations) causing flooding on local roads, the performers were unable to make it to the facility.

This was a very worthwhile visit. I feel like we all gained a lot from it. The area where the facility is located (whose name escapes me right now) was, according to the IDDI guy, in much worse shape than Najayo 7 or 8 years ago. It now has one of the best schools in the region (the average grade has gone from a 39 to a 79 for students in the school), and although it is unable to serve everyone (IDDI allows the communities themselves to nominate students to fill the 35 available spots per grade, thus staying out of local politics--but also seemingly passing the buck a little bit) it definitely serves as a kind of beacon for us as we see what might be possible in Najayo.

It´s worth noting, too, though, that the facility is certainly kind of odd in these surroundings. Not to be hyper-critical, but I wonder if something slightly less nice could have been constructed in order to accomodate at least more (if not all of) the students in the surrounding area. The facility´s $780,00 annual operating budget clearly does a lot, but I wonder if it could serve the needs of the community a little better. But, as I´m sure you´ve noticed, it´s easy to criticize. At least these people are doing something, even if my admittedly uninformed opinion it´s imperfect.

That was our main activity for the day. Upon our return to the facility many naps were taken, and once the rain blew over in the afternoon we all greatly enjoyed the much cooler weather.

Okay readers, I´m not caught up fully yet, but I´m doing the best I can. I´m outta here tomorrow, but even though it´s not gonna be done in real time I promise I´ll finish filling you in on all the details of the trip over the next couple days.