Pardon the delay in posting this blog, the trackpad on our laptop decided to stop clicking and after shipping a ‘5 Piece Screwdriver Tool Kit complete with Pentalobe Screwdriver’ to our friends in NYC, it decided to miraculously start working again…just shortly after returning to the mainland, which is good, because the screwdriver package didn't even arrive in time to use it. Oh the joys of travel and technology.
While driving around the cities, beach towns, and rural mountain barrios on the island, we never know exactly what is the result of Hurricane Maria’s destruction and what is just daily life for people that have survived years of vulnerability, instability, and oppression. More than just the numerous buildings in various states of disrepair, from needs new paint job to just complete rubble, it’s the emptiness that is so striking. So many times, we’ve been driving somewhere looking for a place to eat lunch, or a pharmacy to resupply on sunscreen and seen business after business closed or shut down. Empty beaches with turquoise blue waters are lined with equally empty high rise hotels and views of a bygone industrial era in the distance.
While we’d like to think it’s because everyone is just at the beach or waiting in line to see Hamilton, genuine tourism seems to have slowed to a halt and many Puerto Ricans have chosen to escape the misery in search of something only slightly better on the mainland.
A couple days ago on our way to the tropical dry forest and ultra-chill beaches of Guanica, we stopped in the town center at about 6pm to look for dinner. Wikipedia says the town had about 20,000 people at the last census. Nevertheless, after circling the whole thing, twice, our food options were: TacoMaker (a Taco Bell-like chain), McDonald’s, a bakery serving ham and cheese sandwiches, a Chinese place, and a questionably ‘Italian’ joint with an attached food cart offering baked potatoes ‘con todo’ (layered with chicken, ground beef, ham, broccoli, fake cheese, and bacon bits). We ended up sharing a baked potato in the completely empty plaza nearby before heading over to the Econo supermarket where we found most of the town pushing carts full of expensive, unhealthy food, 90% imported from the mainland.
Without exaggeration, we have been the only ‘gringos’ at most places we’ve been (the local police in brand-spanking new uniforms even made an exaggerated point to say 'hello' and wave to us while walking down the main paseo). One notable exception is Gozalandia, a gorgeous two-tiered waterfall with excellent rope swinging, waterfall leaping, and sunny reading nooks where little fish nip your toes (in Thailand you have to pay extra for that). The day we visited, we saw a handful-maybe a dozen-other ‘Mainlanders’ and a tour group of middle-aged Mexicans who were definitely not jumping in.
After that, our next stop was Ponce-a colonial town founded in 1692. It was named after the great-grandson of Juan Ponce de Leon, famous for exploring the new world, ‘discovering Florida’, and seeking out the fountain of youth. The ‘fountain of youth’ he sought, it should be noted, was not ‘living forever’, but increased virility in his old age. Ironically, Cialis is now manufactured in Puerto Rico. He was looking in the right place, just centuries too soon.
Anyway, sorry, back to the story. Our sweet AirBnB host back in the mountains who we endearingly called ‘abuelita’- invited us for lunch at her house. Her family's beautiful property has survived five Category 5 hurricanes and dozens of other smaller hurricanes throughout several generations. So many that she has lost count. When Maria hit, her house was ‘the bunker’ where everyone in her family met to seek safety. Her story is similar to thousands of others-walking for miles along blocked and flooded roads in search of water and other basic needs, trying to reach her children to let them know she was alive, waiting in line for hours to pump less than a half tank of gas. She said that surviving Maria was the hardest thing she has done in her entire life. We were grateful to talk with her over lunch to better understand the resilience of the people here.
One last tragic story to share that sums up our experience on the island... while driving to our next AirBnB, we rounded a blind corner and saw a wounded pig laying on the side of the road. The corner was oddly very busy and vehicles were whizzing by left and right. We assumed the pig had been hit by a car and we couldn’t just pass on by knowing that another car would probably strike again soon. We pulled over, thinking we could at least try to coax the pig into a safer spot on the side of the road. Its foot was bloody and injured but we managed to get him to a safer spot. Chris went door to door trying to figure out whose pig it was, while I filled up a Styrofoam container with water and stood in a pile of trash beside the panting pig as a way to provide a little protection/shade. Chris spoke with several people and none of them seemed to care or take any action. One person simply said "if you want it you can have it." We realized it wasn’t a big deal to people who have suffered through so much, but it was still a disheartening experience that reflected the experience of Puerto Ricans-economically and physically wounded, lying on the global roadside as its own (U.S.) government speeds by unconcerned. After 15 minutes or so, it seemed as though word had spread in the neighborhood and someone came to notify the pig's owner. We covered the poor pig alongside the fence with a large board. We came back a couple hours later to check on him and he wasn't there.
Overall, in the last three weeks we have learned that Puerto Ricans don’t want pity or even tourism dollars. What they want and need is appropriate funding for sustainable infrastructure that doesn’t depend on opportunistic corporations and self-concerned political leaders. They want an audit of their national debt load that has crippled the island after years of injustice. They want the government to keep their schools open. They want reliable drinking water and electricity. They want to feed their own people, with their own land that hasn't been taken by corporate vultures of all kinds.
In the energy and optimism of the younger generation is where we saw a glimmer of hope in the future of Puerto Rico. After wandering around old San Juan, we headed back towards the grittier barrio of Santurce-an artsy, ‘up-and-coming’ neighborhood where we were staying. There, we saw dozens of public sculpture and murals that painted a picture of identify and culture that Puerto Ricans try to maintain while dealing with ongoing oppression, exuding a spirit that breathes life into the hope for a better tomorrow.
*To learn more about the past and current state of Puerto Rico, we highly recommend reading The Battle for Paradise.
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