Cojolya Association of Maya Weavers

Isobelo Trejo Peña makes a tambor out of a hollowed almond trunk.

Candis E Krummel, designer and founder of Cojolya, shares another experience from her development work in the Dominican Republic. Follow The DR Diaries at Cojolya’s website.

March 2012

Imagine this scene…

On the beach, sitting on a driftwood log. Ocean waves setting the beat.

The evening sky is brushed with pink, feathery clouds floating over the darkening, turquoise sea. Behind us, hovering over the mountain, the crescent moon is brilliant. This mountain, named by Christopher Columbus as Isabel de la Torre is Puerto Plata’s own Diamond Head.

The evening sky is brushed with pink, feathery clouds floating over the darkening, turquoise sea. Behind us, hovering over the mountain, the crescent moon is brilliant. This mountain, named by Christopher Columbus as Isabel de la Torre is Puerto Plata’s own Diamond Head. This evening is my first lesson in learning to play the tambora, the Dominican drum that is the heart of the meringue beat. This beach is my classroom.

The tambora is of West African origin, a tradition brought with the slaves whom the Spanish imported to Hispaniola to work the gold mines and later the sugar cane plantations. Mine is a rope tuned tambora with goatskin heads, made by a friend of mine, Isobelo Trejo Peña, out of a hollowed almond trunk. It’s a jewel!

Amauris Martínez plays the guira, while Isobelo Trejo Peña plays the tambora he made for Candis Krummel.

My teacher, Amauris Martinez, is a professional percussionist from Puerto Plata with whom I have spent the past two evenings, at his insistence, immersing myself in the rhythm of the music while he played at two very different gigs. The first one was at the home of Miles Peña, a very well known Cuban-exile musician who now lives in Puerto Plata and was having a party to “celebrate love.” You can imagine that the music was more than fabulous and watching the Dominicans, who are passionate about dancing the merengue, was joyful beyond words. Dominicans are born to dance!

The second event was equally amazing; it was the evening show at an all-inclusive resort, with some 1500 or 2000 people in an outdoor setting on the beach, with a huge stage and dance floor the focus of everyone’s attention. The show was like something from Las Vegas. But what made me feel I had indeed been transported to Las Vegas was the amazing experience of suddenly being surrounded by more than a thousand gringos of all ages, milling around me here in the Dominican Republic! I rarely see any gringo tourists in Puerto Plata and never in the small communities in which I work. The presence of so many was shocking!

A bit of Las Vegas moved to the Carribean island.

But what struck me most was how sad it is that these visitors think that the scene in this all-inclusive resort IS the Dominican Republic; that their memories will be of an environment created as a theme park and they will not get to know the beauty of the small towns nestled in the green mountains, nor have a conversation with an old man and his grandson playing dominoes at a table in the shade of a tree, on the streets of Puerto Plata. As one working in sustainable tourism, this experience made a huge impression on me, seeing what it is like for the average tourist who chooses one of these all-inclusive resorts.

But now to return to this lovely evening in my tropical beach class room: learning to play my tambora. Today I only got as far as beginning to teach my right hand to maintain the rhythm on the drum, moving between the deep resonance of the goat-skin head and the tappety-tap on lemon-wood rim. Amauris played the guira (a textured steel instrument which looks like a grater and is played with a metal comb) to keep me on the beat and we actually sounded something like a merengue rhythm section. I never had more respect than I do tonight, for the skills of excellent drummers!

Candis E Krummel, designer and founder of Cojolya, shares another experience from her development work in the Dominican Republic. Follow The DR Diaries at Cojolya’s website.

During this time, the surrounding ridges are brilliant with the neon orange flowers.

 February 19^th, 2012 

In the little mountain town of Los Hidalgos, as a “pilot project” of TURISOPP, the people have organized a fair celebrating the blooming season of their beloved forests of amapola trees (Erythrina poeppigiana). During this time, the surrounding ridges are brilliant with the neon orange flowers.

My work in Los Hidalgos was to organize and guide the women to create products which could be sold at this fair. Masters of crochet, the women of Los Hidalgos used fine DMC yarns to create a line of orange amapola flower accessories. With their skilled hands and vivid imaginations, they captured the essence of the fiery amapola flowers.

Legends tell us that when a young woman walks beneath the blooming trees and steps on the fallen petals, true love will quickly find her. So the fair features love: people have signed up to get married in a specially decorated bower; others will renew their vows; they will have serenades for a loved one and piropos on a bridge.

Amapola flowers.

Piropos!?!  What the heck are those???!!! Well, when posing the question, I was asked to get up on the little wooden bridge made for the fair,  and then the men began to sing and recite love poems to me. One young man dramatically presented me with a grapefruit as if it was a huge bouquet of roses and he made up the sweetest poem. Eventually, all the women joined in too, and as this was just a demonstration… we all dissolved in laughter. Declarations of love and admiration are piropos! I never have known a people so quick to recite poems, sing songs and dance. It is surely their Taíno heritage, where the areítos (songs and dances of Taíno history and traditions) went on for an entire day.

Late last night, coming home from the opening night of the Feria de Amapolas, we gave a ride to the musician who was to provide the serenades to the couples or women.  In the van, on the hour-long trip back to Puerto Plata, he serenaded us the entire time, singing those kinds of Spanish songs of longing and love which every Latin I know, has recorded in their memories. My Dominican companions were practically swooning from the sheer ecstasy of having this romantic, live music accompanying us in the van. Though the driver went more slowly, the time flew by in an instant, with all of our voices joining in at the choruses and our grateful applause at the conclusion of each passionate song.

Candis E Krummel, a founder of and designer at Cojolya, is the Product Development Expert for “TURISOPP: Proyecto Turismo Sostenible basado en la Participacion Publico-Privado para la Provincia de Puerto Plata”, a project sponsored by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency in collaboration with the Dominican Republic governmental agencies of “INFOTEP” and the Ministry of Tourism.

Candis will share her impressions and talk about her work at the Dominican Republic at Cojolya’s blogspot. First, she wants to take us back to her very first impressions of the island and its culture.

The lush mountains and valleys were brilliant in the sunlight.

Sunday June 27, 2010

Flying low over the tropical paradise of the island Hispaniola, the lush mountains and valleys were brilliant in the sunlight as we approached the airport at Santiago de los Caballeros in the Dominican Republic. After  enduring weeks of rain in Guatemala, the sun was a warm welcome for my arrival to begin design work for TURISOPP, a project for the development of sustainable tourism in the area of Puerto Plata. My role will be as designer in product development, with an emphasis on artisan creations.

Neglected historical jewel of Puerto Plata.

Puerto Plata is situated on the North Coast of the island, where the blue Atlantic meets the verdant mountains.  The colonial port, San Felipe de Puerto Plata, was named and designed by Christopher and his brother Bartholomew Columbus in 1496 and established in 1502.  The entire province of Puerto Plata (which is the object of our mission) is rich with natural attractions located along the abundant rivers of the Royal Palm forested mountains (all this with no poisonous snakes) or along the miles of coastline; archeological sites of the Tainos (and even earlier inhabitants) who were here when Columbus arrived; the very first European settlement in the Americas, La Isabela, with its ruins and Spanish shipwrecks;  the colonial city of Puerto Plata with its multicultural history and architectural gems. In this charming small city, I sense we are looking at an Antigua, Guatemala of some thirty or forty years ago with all of its potential, yet unrealized.

The man in the foreground is our local project coordinator, Takashi Aoki.

The people of Puerto Plata are one of its exceptional resources.  A blending of Taino, Spanish and African genes and cultures, they are warm, open, friendly, enthusiastic and fun-loving.  Music is in their veins and many of our meetings conclude by taking out guitars, accordions, güiras, tamboras and playing typical music with everyone dancing to the merengue.

At least half of the population seems to speak some English and their version of Spanish is all their own… a melodic version, practically unintelligible to those of us from the continent of the Americas.  There is a beautiful mixing of skin colors on faces whose features retain original characteristics from the mix of cultures… in a range of colors from white to chocolate, with no discrimination based upon color apparent within the local population.

The only people who are looked down upon are the Haitians. This discrimination is the result of a complex history between the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which is forever  perceived as threatening the Dominicans with the possibility of falling under the rule once again of the Haitian, either formally or  simply by the flood of immigrants entering the country and becoming the dominant majority.   Distinguishable by their darker skin color and French accents, Haitians have come here to seek a better opportunity only to find themselves in the lowest categories of employment in agriculture and construction or on the streets selling fruit.

The malecon and beach in front of my hotel.

I was lucky to find a hotel room right on the malecon (boulevard which follows the coastline), third floor with two balconies overlooking the beach and the tropical-blue Atlantic.  When the wind comes up, there are kite surfers skimming the waves. Being here, one gets the sense of being on a ship at sea:  watching the clouds gathering along the horizon and bringing squalls of rain, and then moving on until the sun comes out again.  I am very aware of the relative smallness of this island in the sea and the urgent necessity to protect this exquisite paradise from further exploitive development.