In which Tim meets with the Japanese...

It was 10:30 on a humid Santo Domingo morning, and my assignment was simple. I was to meet the director of the organization to which I have been assigned at the office of a group called JICA. JICA is more or less the Japanese equivalent of the Peace Corps. Japanese professionals volunteer to live for two years in a developing country, sharing their culture along with various technical expertise. A JICA volunteer had been assigned to the same organization as me, so I assumed that my director and I were just going to be picking the guy up and high tailing it for the countryside. Because it would just be an in and out affair, I figured there would be no problem with the fact that I had sweated through my shirt on the walk across the city and looked a little bit like I had forgotten to dry off from my morning shower before getting dressed that morning.

I got off the elevator at the seventh floor, and felt like I had been teleported to a part of the world quite far from the North Caribbean. The hallways were full of Japanese people running this way and that, and the decor had the sleek silverish look that I have come to associate with twenty first century Tokyo. I was ushered into a waiting room where I sat down in chair that looked like it could have come from a spaceship, and I was soon met by my director. Far from simply meeting the Japanese volunteer, we were actually about to attend their swearing in ceremony that was to be officiated by none other than the Japanese ambassador. There would also be in attendance a number of very important people in the world of Dominican development.

Great. Here I am about to hob knob with the cream of NGO society, and I am in a sweaty shirt. On top of that, the Peace Corps has a lot of very strict rules governing everything from what I am allowed to post on my blog, right down to the food I put in my body. I wasn't quite sure how they would feel about me representing the Corps, as well as the entire U.S of A. at a semi-diplomatic function. And there was really no way around this since I came into the building wearing my standard issue Peace Corps ID badge, and couldn't very well take it off and stow it in my pocket while sitting in the spaceship chair in the quickly filling room. Then I remembered that one of the things that my Peace Corps drill sergeants are big on is the art of improvisation. When one finds oneself in an ambiguous situation, just keep on rolling.

So I did what I do best. I put on a smile and turned up the charm. Fortunately the powerful air conditioner was able to take care of my sweat situation before it came time to mix and mingle. Since my Japanese is a little rusty, and most Japanese living in the Dominican Republic have little to no reason to be fluent in English, the language of conversation was Spanish. More specifically, my conversation partners were speaking Spanish with fairly heavy Japanese accents. I had never before paused to wonder what Spanish would sound like when combined with the East Asian manner of speaking, but now I know. If you, dear reader, ever have the opportunity to speak Spanish with a Japanese person, please use it and use it well.

I also discovered very quickly that the Japanese people around here really like the Peace Corps. A lot. When I met the deputy director of JICA, I thought he was going to bounce through the roof. We engaged in an extended hand shake and series of bows that lasted a very long time, with him continually saying "Peace Corps!! USA!! Very good!! Muy bien, muy bien!!" And when he left the room at the end he came up to me, smiled ear to ear, and said in his heavy Japanese accent "Estados Unidos y Japon. Juntos siempre!" ("The United States, and Japan. Always together!"). He bowed deeply, turned around, and quickly marched from the room.

After the program with speeches, there was a reception complete with sushi and a bunch of those amazing cookie and cracker concoctions that the Japanese have invented. The Dominicans present did not think much of the sushi, but loved the cookies and the chicken terriyaki. So I got to eat a little extra sushi. I was as happy as a pig in mud.

At the reception I met the volunteer who will be a part of my program, and he's a stellar guy. Smart and excited to get started with his volunteer work. We spent the next couple of days together, travelling to our site and meeting a lot of new people who's names we've probably both forgotten by now. But despite the fact that he and I come from totally different cultures and can only communicate in a language that is native to neither of us, there was a tremendous spirit of shared adventure. We've both left home and family to come to this tiny island, and try to do something that will make the world a little bit better.

It's neat to know that no matter what ambiguous, random, or strange cultural situation I find myself in, there are some things that persist. Like people everywhere loving good food. And decent people recognizing the fact that our world has a lot of problems, and being willing to work hard to fix it. It was a cool day.