The city of Santo Domingo took a break from its normal bustling commercial activity to give way to visiting statesmen here for the Summit. As word got around that city residents should keep traveling around the city to a minimum, in order to avoid bottlenecks as a result of temporary short closing off of major avenues to give way to passing caravans of heads of state, many chose to stay home. As a result, in many areas of the city, traffic was down to the pleasant levels of a Saturday afternoon. In other areas, longer than usual traffic bottlenecks did occur. Schools were called off in the city, and children sent home to watch the event on TV, read the newspaper reports in order to write up their own papers on the event and the little African and Pacific countries that are represented. The attendance of the African visiting delegations, attired in their long robes, has also motivated Dominicans to focus on the African continent for a first time.
