Monday, May 17, 2010

CaribDE Day Four – Sunday, 16th May 2010

Posted by Bob Schumacher, CUDE 2001

Sunday at DE is strange at DE, to say the least! But add to that the fact that we are at a Benedictine Abbey and you can exponentially add to that affect. Let me start with the fact that breakfast had to be moved to an earlier time as all would be at Mass in the Chapel next to our meeting room. Many of our Carib folks went right from early breakfast to early Mass.

Melvin Edwards and Dorwin Manzano started the day with the discovery and discussion of hot topics that challenge and confound the Caribbean movement each day. Amazingly, they end up being extremely similar to the US movement’s bi g issues. It was also amazing to see people who began the week coming into training as proud representatives of their many individual island countries go into this session with a new sense of connection with each other that supersedes individual national pride.

We moved into the project spotlight activities next, exploring in detail three international and one US project. As we have come to expect from this class, all four presentations were spot on. We then retired to lunch when mentors discussed upcoming individual DE projects to be presented to the group tomorrow. Most of the soon-to-be-designees already had more than an idea about their projects and described them with such passion and pride. Lunch did provide a unique moment of excitement as little Sister Benedicta climbed on the kitchen counter and with a long pole to begin poking at something in the ceiling rafters while the other nuns scurried about out of the way. We all gasped then howled as a very large crab flew from the rafters onto the floor! To the delight and appreciation of the nuns, Big Bert Mullings, DE-to-be, calmly moved in, picked it up and released it onto the grounds outside.

Debbie Wege told the story of the CDCU and the role of community development credit unions within the US movement, injecting her credit union’s relationship with Express CU in the process. The participants kept her on stage right up to the last seconds of her time asking questions. It was almost as if they knew what was coming next, wanting to avoid it.

But, of course, they didn’t as we handed out the credit union in development issues for them to ponder and solve. These “unsolvable” scenarios were attacked with energy and in-depth drilling producing very plausible decisions. The presentations provided a fitting end to the work day, in preparation for tomorrow’s big final case studies.

Normally we would have had a regular dinner before retiring in preparation for tomorrow’s rigors, but the nuns prepared an amazing meal of several nationalities for us to enjoy. And once again, the guitar came out as David Marquez led the whole group in more song, laughter and camaraderie. Now on to the longest day!

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