My wife and I own a set of dominoes with fruit on them instead of numbers. The set is called, both charmingly and obviously, "fruitominoes." We read that dominoes is a national pastime in the DR, so we packed our set. We have since discovered - though, it seems glaringly obvious now - that every Dominican household already has a set. If we do end up using the fruitominoes it will likely be in our own home, wherever that ends up being.
We played it once or twice before we left, but prior to that it had probably been 20 years since I last had. I hated it. It seemed stupid. Why would I want to spend time matching numbers that I drew randomly from a pile? It was something I did because I was expected to when we visited my grandparents. I would excuse myself to do something solitary as soon as I had the chance. At the time I was so busy being bored that I failed to notice two important facts about the game.
The first is that although the fichas (tiles) are dealt randomly, the outcome is far from arbitrary. As with all enduring games there is an element of chance but strategy and attention to detail matter. You can count dominoes the same way you count cards. This is not considered cheating. A skilled player will have a good idea of what is in the hands of the opposing players. In games of four, the players form teams of two sitting across the table from each other. You have to work together without communicating directly. I don't know the Spanish for "table talk" but it goes over here about as well as it does back in the US. Tile counting is all the more important with teams because you need to think about the best moves for two players. This is challenging for people who, like me, are unaccustomed to thinking in terms of limited probability and is all the more impressive considering that a good session of dominoes usually involves more than one round of cerveza.
The other important fact about dominoes is that the game doesn't really matter at all. It's nice if you know the rules - if you don't, Dominicans will gladly teach you - and better still if you are a skilled player but the most important part is the time spent together. The Spanish word for this is compartir, which means "to share." In practice, it's meaning has something common with our US notion of "quality time" but has additional subtlety. While substance is certainly appreciated, quantity matters too: confianza ("trust," the secondary product of compartir) accumulates like interest in a bank account. When you compartir, you soak up each others presence like a plant does the sun and from this a trusting relationship can blossom.
A key part of CBT is a performing a diagnostic in which you ask community members probing, sometimes nosy questions about their families, religion, how much they earn, etc. It makes perfect sense that in order to provide meaningful assistance to a community you need to get to know it first, but how do you get people to answer such intimate questions? One answer is dominoes.
During research for my community diagnostic, I spoke to the dueña (owner) of a local colmado - think of a corner store where people also drink and dance in the evenings. The colmado is across the street from where a friend lives. I've visited him there to work on projects and have shared meals with his host family. The dueña knows the doña of that household and, more importantly, she knows that the doña knows me. She also knows me because friends and I have passed many an evening at her establishment drinking cerveza and playing dominoes once our work is done. It's mostly us gringos but when there is an opening at the table we offer the spot to any Dominican who wishes to join us. She has sat across the table from me herself. When it came time to ask diagnostic questions she spoke openly about her community, her business, and herself because I had earned some confianza.
Compartir and confianza are key concepts in Dominican culture. They have been drilled into us during core PC training in a way that seemed redundant at first but I have since come to appreciate. In a society where the official systems, be they government or business, don't function as reliability as they should personal trust is that much more important. This could be a chicken/egg thing - maybe the systems don't work well because people put relationships above impartiality? - but it's too early for me to call and nothing I think I will be in a position to change. Right now, I am just really glad I learned to play dominoes.
We played it once or twice before we left, but prior to that it had probably been 20 years since I last had. I hated it. It seemed stupid. Why would I want to spend time matching numbers that I drew randomly from a pile? It was something I did because I was expected to when we visited my grandparents. I would excuse myself to do something solitary as soon as I had the chance. At the time I was so busy being bored that I failed to notice two important facts about the game.
The first is that although the fichas (tiles) are dealt randomly, the outcome is far from arbitrary. As with all enduring games there is an element of chance but strategy and attention to detail matter. You can count dominoes the same way you count cards. This is not considered cheating. A skilled player will have a good idea of what is in the hands of the opposing players. In games of four, the players form teams of two sitting across the table from each other. You have to work together without communicating directly. I don't know the Spanish for "table talk" but it goes over here about as well as it does back in the US. Tile counting is all the more important with teams because you need to think about the best moves for two players. This is challenging for people who, like me, are unaccustomed to thinking in terms of limited probability and is all the more impressive considering that a good session of dominoes usually involves more than one round of cerveza.
The other important fact about dominoes is that the game doesn't really matter at all. It's nice if you know the rules - if you don't, Dominicans will gladly teach you - and better still if you are a skilled player but the most important part is the time spent together. The Spanish word for this is compartir, which means "to share." In practice, it's meaning has something common with our US notion of "quality time" but has additional subtlety. While substance is certainly appreciated, quantity matters too: confianza ("trust," the secondary product of compartir) accumulates like interest in a bank account. When you compartir, you soak up each others presence like a plant does the sun and from this a trusting relationship can blossom.
A key part of CBT is a performing a diagnostic in which you ask community members probing, sometimes nosy questions about their families, religion, how much they earn, etc. It makes perfect sense that in order to provide meaningful assistance to a community you need to get to know it first, but how do you get people to answer such intimate questions? One answer is dominoes.
During research for my community diagnostic, I spoke to the dueña (owner) of a local colmado - think of a corner store where people also drink and dance in the evenings. The colmado is across the street from where a friend lives. I've visited him there to work on projects and have shared meals with his host family. The dueña knows the doña of that household and, more importantly, she knows that the doña knows me. She also knows me because friends and I have passed many an evening at her establishment drinking cerveza and playing dominoes once our work is done. It's mostly us gringos but when there is an opening at the table we offer the spot to any Dominican who wishes to join us. She has sat across the table from me herself. When it came time to ask diagnostic questions she spoke openly about her community, her business, and herself because I had earned some confianza.
Compartir and confianza are key concepts in Dominican culture. They have been drilled into us during core PC training in a way that seemed redundant at first but I have since come to appreciate. In a society where the official systems, be they government or business, don't function as reliability as they should personal trust is that much more important. This could be a chicken/egg thing - maybe the systems don't work well because people put relationships above impartiality? - but it's too early for me to call and nothing I think I will be in a position to change. Right now, I am just really glad I learned to play dominoes.
Love this entry! Request - can you black out the photo under the text? Make for easier reading on the eyeballs :)
ReplyDelete