My host sister Nuna in Los Cocos (near Santiago) obtained permission from the cigar factory in which she works for me to visit one afternoon. The factory is located in a Zona Franca.
(explanation of Zona Franca: a tax-free zone set up my the Dominican government. Both foreign and local companies may buy or rent space to set up factories. They can import materials at no additional cost, and then export it back out without paying taxes. Thus a Zona Franca creates a lot of jobs in an area, and provides businesses with relatively low-cost labor to make such things as cigars, purses, and dresses.)
I arrived around 2, and Nuna hadn’t yet completed her daily quota of 500, so I spent my time chatting with her while she worked and exploring the factory. Lucky for me, this culture tends to be VERY outgoing and loves to share. A supervisor told me that I could and should learn everything about cigar making and could explore any part of the factory I wanted. Therefore, I had no problem making friends. People showed me how they do their jobs and chatted with me about their life and why I was visiting. I told many of them that my interest in cigars was born in Tampa, and is due to the fact that my grandmother and many other family members once made a living rolling cigars in Ybor City. They loved that and wanted to teach me, but warned that it takes a really long time to learn, as cigar rolling is difficult.
I have time, I told them. So began my training. I started by learning to tear the center stem out of leaves without tearing the dried leaf, and then being sure to organize the leaves by size and in the proper direction.
Another man showed me the “really hard to roll” cigar that he makes. It’s called a Hemingway. “Do you know who Hemingway is?” he asked. No one in the factory knew. I taught him and those in his area who the man was that their work is named for.
A friend of Nuna’s first showed me how to roll the outside part of the cigar. With much trial and error, tobacco-stained hands, and a few torn leaves, I started to get the hang of it. It’s hard as the leaf is delicate and a natural resin is used to secure it in places. One wants this final wrapper to look perfect, but with his help, I wrapped the final part of several Don Antonio cigars that passed the quality control check!
Later on I learned to use a mechanism to tightly roll the inside part of the cigar. With the particular cigar that I was working on, four different types of tobacco are placed together to make up the cigar. After this part, the cigar is placed into a holding container that then presses the tobacco together for at least four hours, being sure to compress the cigar properly. From there, the outer tobacco leaf is rolled on.
Thus, most people work in teams. One person makes the inner part, one the outer. Daily cigar quotas for workers range from 400-500, depending on the difficulty of the cigar. The people working in the factory shared a few cigars with me, including one Hemingway, one that Nuna was working on, and I was able to keep one of the Don Antonio’s that I made. “Smoke them,” they told me, but I don’t actually like to smoke cigars, I just think they’re interesting. I’m saving my three for my brother.
Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/colleengatliff/CigarFactory
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