Last year, on my first trip back since the coronavirus pandemic began, I visited my Tío David, a Catholic priest. Soon, I can’t remember what life is like without roosters screaming in the early morning, the neighbor’s donkey braying, wild parrots flying overhead, the peacocks train-rattling down the hill. After a couple of weeks in the mountains, of days walking the cobblestone streets, feeding flea-bitten satos with wagging tails, mosquitoes leaving galaxies of red down my arms and legs, the coquis singing me to sleep at night, I start to feel more like myself, like the woman I’m supposed to be. Sometimes I spend whole summers there, sweating my ass off, driving up and down narrow mountain roads, splitting my time among San Lorenzo and San Juan and Humacao and Comerío. OscarĮvery year, no matter where I’m living, I visit family in Puerto Rico. This is why I believe that independence, not statehood, is the path we must pursue. Every day, more of them come to understand that Puerto Rico has always stood on its own. Every day, people see that there is only them, doing everything for themselves. There is no benevolent American savior coming to help Puerto Rico. Every day, it becomes more and more obvious that the current government structure-Puerto Rico as a de facto colony of the United States, despite the official language referring to it as a “commonwealth”-is a failure. Nine months after María, people still have no electricity. Photos of Puerto Rico after Hurricane Mari a The official count, announced in December, is 64, but a study the following year by The New England Journal of Medicine finds a fair estimate to be more than 5,000. María, the people learn, is the deadliest hurricane to hit Puerto Rico since 1899, but nobody can agree on the true death toll. The military arrives, the National Guard mobilizes, but the Trump administration blocks access to more than $20 billion in hurricane-relief aid and recovery funding. They endure obstacles created by the U.S. They wait for FEMA.įor months, they live in survival mode, dealing with an archipelago-wide mental-health crisis, a shortage of drinking water, delayed or unavailable medical services. They clean and clean, but the job never stops. People clear fallen trees, bamboo, garbage. All over the sloped back garden: children’s clothing, toys, shingles from a nearby roof. In a bedroom is someone else’s desk lamp, a neighbor’s charcoal grill. The storm carried so much away, dropped other people’s things inside their homes. They try to salvage family pictures, wedding albums, birth certificates. They shovel mud out of their living rooms, their kitchens, their bedrooms, their bathrooms. When people stand on a terrace watching the town below, they see an ocean of blue-covered houses. Every day, more tarps go up, house after house. The people work with their neighbors to secure blue tarps onto roofs. They watch that same president deny that many people have died, even as thousands never come home. Eventually he will propose trading Puerto Rico for Greenland.Īs the days become weeks, there is more rain there are more floods. They endure President Donald Trump, who spends the weekend after the storm at a golf tournament, tweeting that his critics in Puerto Rico are “politically motivated ingrates.” They watch him toss paper towels at hurricane survivors when he finally does visit, in early October-a performance before the world, meant as a humiliation. They desperately hunt for drinking water, collecting it from wells and natural springs and any other source they can find. The days following María bring only more misery, and there is a general understanding that everyone is up against something bigger than a storm. Read: Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands brace for Hurricane Irma It passes through Yabucoa and Humacao and Comerío, and the water levels in Río de la Plata begin to rise. On September 20, the storm makes landfall, knocking out the electrical grid and leaving the entire population in the dark. And then, two weeks later, Hurricane María approaches the archipelago. When Irma moves north of Puerto Rico and across the Caribbean, it brings heavy rains, flooding, power outages. They refill their prescriptions and then fill the gas tank after waiting in an hours-long line at the Puma station. They get what they can: some food, a few gallons of water, a portable gas-powered hot plate in case they lose power. They try to stock up, but by the time they arrive, the lines are long and most of the shops are running low. I n 2017, as summer ends, when news anchors first mention the oncoming Hurricane Irma, the people go to the big-box store or the Econo supermarket just a few minutes from home.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |