Participants Blog

Each One Teach One and Our Culture Will Grow

I’d just sat down on a park bench to begin writing this response, when I saw the skinny legs of a young boy around the age of 5, a nino, run up to me. I lifted my eyes off the page, half-preparing to deny a request for “monies”, when with a timid smile he asked if I would like some food. “Es libre!” he said beaming, nodding his shaved head and ran off to the three women standing in the shade of a little building in the middle of the park, packing up their Sunday morning food sales, and had made a plate of rice, beans, noodles and fried chicken to welcome me to the community, no charge.

Perhaps this is a good way to start describing my time thus far in Consuelo, San Pedro de Macoris in the Dominican Republic. Consuelo is on its own time-line (which actually makes this late 1st entry perfectly on time), is full of welcoming invitations, good, food, the feeling of family and the challenging of pre-conceptions for an outsider like myself. The child whom I thought was asking for money not only turned out to feed me, but also invited me to his 6th birthday party next week at the delight of his mother; a phenomenon that just really would not occur too often in my hometown back in Canada. Though I felt bad for my first notion of what the nino wanted, it was also warranted, as in other Dominican cities I’ve visited of Santo Domingo, San Pedro and Boca Chica, kids asking for pesos, to shine shoes or to sell jewelery and trinkets, and though that still does occur here it is much less and the greetings are much more authentic, inquisitive and very generous.

Music is a strong center stone of Consuelo; you can’t escape it. I fall asleep with my bedside roommate and my mother and sister in the other room in our cute little casa in Barrio Invi, to the soft, and kind of cheesy guitar plucking of bachata playing from the neighbouring cornerstore (which competes with the loud speakers across the street from it blasting merengue), and I awake to either the boom of a bass amp strapped to the back of a passing truck, the loud speaker of a local farmer selling fresh plantains (staple in the Dominican diet), or the competing clucks of my neighbours roosters. Consuelo is also full of well dressed people, especially on Sundays due to the many churches where the services are much more lively than my experiences in Canada, and to which I attend far more often. Regular mass services are Fridays and Sundays, last approximately two hours with song and semi-dancing, and last week I also attended two bible classes with my mother Iris. Four religious sessions in a week in fast-paced Spanish, constant questions of my faith and working in a Biblical school with Torontonian Evangelical missionaries can be a bit tiring, and I’m trying not to question faith too much, one of my favorite past times, as I am here primarily to experience the culture of the other.
I have no problem with adhering to the guidelines of my Christian household, with the exception of one qualm. In the Biblical community of Consuelo, dancing is “not Christian”, as dancing here is very sensual and necessitates being with a man and woman, and non-Christian music is very questionable. My hopes of experiencing the musical side of Consuelo and learning classical and street meringue, salsa and bachatta have been crushed, but my hopes of teaching bboyin to the local muchachos are still strong. My hopes are that once they see “bboyin/bgirlin/breakin” for what it truly is, they’ll see that sex really cannot be tied into it, and hence cannot lead one to Satan.

The large blisters on my feet are testimony to my first real test as an “Americano, gringo, blanco.” As this is a welcoming country for the most part, I sometimes forget that I do stick out like a sore thumb, and the basketball courts of my Barrio were a good wake-up call, with two 3-on-3’s, and two not-so-friendly 1-on-1 challenges all back to back, with much Dominican Spanish court talk, and concl;uding with a mid-court bboy battle. Never had kids seen anything like it, and I feel they now have a further understanding of the goodness in an “un-Christian” dance. Limping across the street the next morning to buy cell phone minutes, a couple of ninos and muchachos called out to me “Daniel! Daniel!” (“Danny-elle” here), and the smallest asked if and when I would teach him, which made me feel awesome and no longer like I was supposed to be a sinner for loving dancing.

“Each one teach one and our culture will grow.”

These past couple of weeks feel much longer in a good way, due strongly to the places I’ve visited and relationships I’ve made. My pre-conceptions of faith and culture alike have been challenged strongly, and my patience and level of comprehension have been tested on many levels. The differences in financial poverty levels differ strongly, with mansions living beside slums, and have been part of my strongest reaction. I don’t know why I didn’t write about it in my first reflection, as it has been troubling for me to deal with, but I plan to in the second report when I’ve had further experiences with two and a half months left in the city of Consuelo.

-Daniel Blais, Dominican Republic