On this, the second anniversary of Hurricane Maria, I thought I would post what I wrote during and immediately after the catastrophe.
Wednesday, September 20, 2017. Blackness, filled with the rage of nature. The wind alternately snarls and roars, but always pounds the walls, rattles the window louvers, assaults the very tympanums of our ears. My wife, Lourdes, who usually can sleep through a reggaeton party in our living room, is awake. She is no more or less frightened than I am. We both remember Hurricane Georges and have both experienced countless false alarms. We can’t predict what is coming with Maria but are confident that we all will survive. And we do, but that is an indication of the ferocity of this storm: Within hours of Maria’s swooping in and saying, Hey dudes, I’m here!, thoughts of survival fill the entirety of our horizon. Whether the termite-infested roof over the laundry area takes flight doesn’t matter. And the palm tree whose base is being eaten away by ants (ants?)? Fall, doesn’t fall, unimportant.
Rewind. For a couple of days, I have teased my wife a time or two: Her name is María de Lourdes, often called “María” rather than “Lourdes.” And she is a stormy woman. We found it funny at the time, the gently joking parallel. A way to whistle past the graveyard. But she cannot compare to Hurricane Maria, who seems to have gathered all the anger and pain of our suffering planet and released the totality of it, in violence, in retribution, on our beautiful, soon-to-be-destroyed island.
Strong fingers of wind power through the closed metal slats of the window and pull down a badly hung curtain. Ours is the hottest bedroom in the house. If granted a peek at the future, we nevertheless would not believe how suffocatingly hot life is about to become—right now. The two fans in our room stop, their invisible-from-speed blades now invisible in the utter darkness. We don’t rely on air conditioners in our house, but the lack of fans to push even super-heated air or to scatter the clouds of hungry damn mosquitoes will add to the approaching misery.
Thursday, September 21, 2017. With the early morning wind still filling ears and still raging, the first day is all sitting around, doing nothing, waiting for Hurricane Maria to officially change status from catastrophe-in-the-making to catastrophe.
Both Tati and I (separately) shower in the water draining from the roof. This is exciting in a survivor-on-a-desert-island kind of way and, as it turns out, unnecessary: The water returns in the afternoon. It will come and go like that for two days before returning for good (so far, 09/29/2017).
We examine the house and yard. Palm tree, down, laundry-room roof, still in place. We have survived, but I automatically count heads, knowing that it is my small attempt to add a level of control to my life. Dalia, my suegra (mother-in-law), a diabetic. Her insulin will be a primary concern. Her non-stop sweeping and mopping, straightening, organizing, and coffee preparing will keep us all sane for the next several days as we adjust to this new reality. Chary, my cuñada (sister-in-law). Her left leg was amputated a little over a year ago and she is still learning to cope with the loss. Still, she will do everything in her power to help. Lourdes, my wife, mi vida. A born manager, her most difficult times are going to be tied to the total loss of control over her environment, her worries about her loved ones, and Ginger the fish, who, even before the hurricane, was struggling to survive. Fernando, my hijastro (stepson) and his boyfriend Carlos. Tremendous young men. Both are caring and responsible, and both are about to spend countless hours queueing for . . . everything. Tatiana, my hijastra (stepdaughter) and her boyfriend Angel. Also amazing and resilient young people. Tatiana will turn this into an adventure, a coping mechanism that keeps her spirits permanently up; she and Angel will be our other hunters, also braving horrific lines and dealing with angry, frightened, and frustrated co-waiters. The “baby” of the family, Bobby, Lourdes’s and my son. He is a brilliant and sensitive teenager who has never been without a DS, YouTube, his cellphone, or a refrigerator. Soon, he will slide my feet into my sandals and fasten the straps, which I can’t do myself because of my knee. He’ll bring me my coffee, fetch my books, and help me stand the few times that I can’t do it on my own. If he were here, looking over my shoulder as I write, he would insist that I add the modifier “reluctantly.” Okay, Bobby, I added it. But he does those things and more.
Day spent mopping up water and deciding how best to consume the food in our dead refrigerator, two meals cooked on our propane stove. As the afternoon melts into early evening, the candles and flashlights come out. Our minds and bodies, accustomed to light and action far into the night, become groggy and slow soon after the sun goes down. Lourdes and I retire to our bedroom at 7:47. Good grief.
Friday, September 22, 2017. No sleep. Or little. An hour or two can sometimes be layered into that magical moment in the early morning when the heat of the previous day finally relaxes back in its chair, resting, readying itself to leap out and rage at us throughout the following day. I don’t believe in hell, but for the first time in my nearly three decades of living on the tropical island of Puerto Rico, I am willing to accede that it might exist: Post-Maria Puerto Rico.
I join my neighbors in clearing away the fallen trees and limbs blocking the street that forms one of the only two access routes to our neighborhood. Though I am certain that the city will eventually begin the monstrous task of cleaning up, we are here, we can do it, and so we do. I soon have blisters from swinging a machete. I forgot to bring gloves. One of the residents prepares coffee and hands out cups to all of us. It rains from time to time; we all of us are dripping with that and sweat by the time, hours later, the road is clear enough that a car can pass.
I harp on the heat because it is like a living thing, always at your back, punching through any calm that you might be able to gather. And stress, oh, there is stress. I am writing this a week later, but at the time, Friday, we had used half of our stash of hurricane cash that every Puerto Rican household is supposed to have—to buy ice and gas; to buy rice and bananas and things that don’t require refrigeration or can be used on the same day as their purchase. Oh, and for me to go to the emergency room (don’t worry, I’m okay—a sprained knee, from when the tree I was pulling off the roof pulled me down with it [except not: It turns out my leg was broken and the ER doc, stressed beyond measure, missed it; I wouldn’t find out for another two weeks.]). The afternoon is spent dialing and redialing the Claro landline in my bedroom—go ahead, call me a Luddite, now!—the radio broadcaster having informed us that of all the communication companies on the island, Claro is the only one that still has a functioning line. I get through to my dad. Sweating and relieved, I nearly break down and cry (something I hate to do; I know, get over it) but manage to sputter out that we’re okay, though our cash reserves are dwindling and about two days of food remains. He promises to call those in both families who still don’t know whether we survived, and to find a way to get us money. After another four hours of continuous dialing/redialing, I am able to personally get through to everyone (including Angel’s sister in Cleveland). The lines are bad. Hardly a minute into the call to my mom, the connection breaks. But she knows, she heard her son’s voice. My sister tells me Facebook and CNN and Fox are gorging on Maria. I realize, as we speak, that she knows more about what is going on than I do. Her macro-view of the situation differs entirely from my close-up one. I remember dozens of past disasters, Katrina and 9/11 looming large in my memory. It comes to me that as spectators to catastrophe, we have this bird's-eye view of catastrophe that mistakenly allows us to feel connected. We aren’t; though in this case, I have to be accurate and modify that: all those outside the blast zone aren’t. I don’t say this out of disrespect, out of any desire to belittle the exterior experiences of 9/11, Katrina, . . . Maria, but it is impossible to know what it is like without living it. If you are someone who did, I get it, finally, hats off to you for surviving. If you didn’t, I recommend against adding “experience a category 4 hurricane at ground zero” to your bucket list.
Saturday, September 23, 2017. No sleep. But minute-by-minute survival—even for those whose situation is less grave—is deadly dull; sometimes I doze on the mattress that we put in the living room—a few minutes in the morning, and maybe again early in the afternoon. Leaving the front and sliding glass doors open makes living in this heat manageable: A freshening breeze licks and laps at whoever is on the mattress. At night, three sleepers use it: Chary, Tatiana, and Angel. Tati has her own room but has graciously ceded it to Dalia, who needs a bit of privacy. I worry about the mosquitoes. A few days ago, I put a poison cake-like thing in the remaining standing water. Given the clouds of biting bastards, I am beginning to think that it was just a nice dessert for the little fuckers—just the chemical kickoff needed to transform them from mild-mannered annoyances to super-suckers. Anyway, boredom is an issue. I love to read and have a large library. Tati observes me putting my book (Watch Your Mouth, by Daniel Handler; weird and wonderful) down and leaning back, letting my exhaustion-weighted eyelids droop. She asks, “Don’t you get bored?” She knows I love to read, but this is the first time that she has seen me do it for hours at a stretch: Usually I lounge about in the fan-cooled comfort of Lourdes’s and my bedroom. “Sure,” I answer, “after four or five hours. But fatigue is making it hard for me to focus.” And, to my unbelieving dismay, I am discovering that you really can read too much! Who knew? (Later, when this is all over, I will conclude that the prior statements are the ravings of a madman.) Eyes closed and with the faintest of breezes cooling the sweat pooled on my chest, I begin to fade.
Dalia asks if I would like some coffee. She is working as hard as anyone, but added to her sweeping and mopping, she continues being a mother. Where does she find the energy? Tomorrow, when the water returns to her neighborhood, she will go back to her own house, and I will wonder how (if!) we would have survived without her these first few days. I’m worried about her insulin. We are moving heaven and earth to make sure that it is always in ice. And Fernando et al.’s future eight-hour ice run (really!) will include two precious bags of cold just for her. Still, how many more days will we (and our community, the people of Puerto Rico) be able to spend three, four, ten hours waiting in various lines for the things we need to survive a single day? Bobby draws the comparison to queuing up for bread in communist-era Russia. I nod but remind him that they had killing cold to contend with, as well. No te quejes.
Sunday, September 24, 2017. No sleep. I can’t find a restful position: My knee hurts all the time. I am taking Excedrin PM (okay, a generic; always thrifty, me); it succeeds in alleviating the pain for only a couple of hours each night. Outside those hours, I endlessly twist and turn, as discomfited by the pain as I am by the heat and by the stink that has accumulated in our bed sheets after days (well, nights) of heavy sweating. Should I tell you about our sleepwear? Too much information. You already know that I sprained my knee. What you don’t know is that part of what keeps me awake is the guilt over my stupidity. Standing on the wall, getting ready to signal Fernando and Bobby to pull, I even said, “The trunk might twist to the side, but I think I can stay out of the way.” Wrong. Well, right, in that it twisted to the side. The hope that I would somehow be able to magically leap out of the way and remain balanced on the wall was a false one. I was in a circus when I was a teen; we didn’t have “jumping out of the way of a hurricane-felled tree” on our list of acts. I scared my family (Bobby is still angry at me) and now am far below 100% capacity. The future me knows [wrong] that a week or ten days will see me returned to 75%, but now, in the dark, in pain, with only that self-berating voice to keep me company, I remain alert and anxious, absent even the temporary opiate of unconsciousness.
Monday, September 25, 2017. No sleep. Still, we don’t know. We can’t comprehend what we will endure. And there is the stress. Will Fernando and Carlos be able to buy gas for the one car and fill the gas cans for the other? Will Tatiana and Angel be able to score at least four bags of ice, two for Dalia, two for us? This is another item that is being rationed: two five-pound bags per family. We’re talking three hours, minimum, for each task. Today, Fernando, Carlos, and Bobby spend about eight hours hunting down and finally capturing four elusive bags. Bobby swears, “Never again.” I’m worried about him. His mood is darkening. It isn’t this specific claim that he won’t go ice hunting again that so concerns me: He isn’t eating. He so wants things to be normal that he refuses to accept the necessary alteration in diet. Burger King opened the day before yesterday, and Bobby has, since then, used piggy-bank change to buy a breakfast burrito, french fries, and—I think—some chicken strips. Food at home repels him.
Many of us—myself included—have lived our lives being comforted by our awareness of a backstop—real or imagined. Our government will save us, our families will save us, our employers will save us. Even now, with my knowledge that resources are being mobilized and that people, rescuers, are coming here to do exactly that, save us, I feel bereft. Cut loose from the lifelines that have tethered me to my society for the entirety of my life. In a few days’ time, Fernando will finally able to withdraw some cash, but will our saviors be able to help us when it runs out? I am still counting on the backstop but am unconvinced that it will amount to much.
Tuesday, September 26, 2017. In the morning, Bobby and I go to Walmart. We queue outside for two hours. To be fair, my 16-year-old son does (blam, guilt!). I’m using a walker and can’t stay on my feet for very long. I sit on the cement base of a still-standing light post in the parking lot, near the entrance. The people standing and slouching and squatting in the line are calm. No one fights. Voices murmur complaints and describe what it is like for the roof to take flight overhead, but the stoic calm is universal. The children, hot, hungry, confused, cry at levels low enough to be worrisome. Where are the lusty full-throated wails? Where are the cries of Mami, tengo hambre, tengo sed, estoy incomodo, quiero estar en casa? After an hour, leaning against the lamppost at my back, I haven’t yet seen my son, who joined the line that stretched all the way back to the entry area of The Home Depot (closed). Where is he? Did he pass out from the heat? Has he been kidnapped? Did he die of dehydration? No, I was thinking that he was wearing a red t-shirt, but it is a black one. As I am about to go full geek freak, I see him shielding himself in the shade of an umbrella that a fellow queuer has been kind enough to share. Black shirt, not red. I join him as he shuffles close to the entry way. The security guard, a short blonde woman with a deepening sunburn, waves us and two others in. Bobby and I have been doing the grocery shopping for about six years, almost always at Walmart (no judgement!). This is the first time that we have done so with an assistant. Walmart has decided that each shopper must be accompanied by a store representative. Sorry, only two cans of Vienna sausages per family, oh, and the bath soap is on the other side of the store. I suspect, also, that it is a way to minimize shoplifting. She is a pleasant woman, helpful and understanding: Bobby and I are also picking up a few things for Dalia and Chary, returned to their house now that the water is consistently present in their neighborhood. Our personal shopper listens to our explanation and agrees to let us buy two families’ worth of a few items. She will later run interference with the cashier, who will automatically object to our buying four cans of Vienna sausages. ATM cards are being accepted today. Hurray!
Wednesday, September 27, 2017. No sleep. I’m waiting in a line at a Banco Popular—not my bank, but we’ve heard nothing about Santander—hoping to be able to withdraw a hundred dollars. I finally decide to do the gas line, instead; Chekov (we always name our vehicles) is dangerously low on fuel. The decision might not be the best one, but after an hour in the bank queue, the bank not open yet, I am hurting badly enough that I decide that we have enough cash—about $40—for now. Gas, I decide, is a more pressing issue. In a day or two, the ATM situation will—I hope—be resolved. We can make it until then. Probably. I read peacefully for two hours, inching closer to the pump, before buying the limit: $10 of gas.
Thursday, September 28, 2017. No sleep. The university where I work is opening, today. In fact, it opened, yesterday, but I didn’t know. Shortened hours and strictly voluntary. Ponce Health Sciences University (PHSU) has an advantage over many businesses on the island in that it is owned by a US-based group: Day-to-day operating expenses will not—I presume—be an issue. All of us are relieved, both at seeing familiar, surviving faces and at the fact that, even at reduced hours, we’ll be earning money again. Tati works at the Ponce Hilton (and attends the Catholic University of Puerto Rico, Ponce; more on that, later). Though I am unclear on the precise details, I understand that the Hilton is going to pay each employee his or her vacation pay (in cash money). As each employee’s vacation pay runs out, the hotel, I am given to understand, is talking about doing something more, though the precise nature of “more” remains to be defined. The hotel sustained severe, business-killing damage, with no estimated start-up date in sight. Tati heard that a repair time counted in months rather than days or even weeks was likely. The hotel’s generosity is an example of what we are beginning to witness every day: Individuals and businesses going the extra mile. I have been as cynical as anyone about the greedy nature of “big business” (whatever that means), but Hurricane Maria has wrought change (let it last!). I know/know of a few local business owners who are money-grubbing sons of bitches. While cautioning you, my reader, to remember that my micro-view still pertains, I am happy to report that generosity and the spirit of “all for one . . .” are prevailing.
Two days ago, Lourdes started clean-up efforts at Librería Educativa, the bookstore that she manages. The demanding, labor-intensive work leaves her physically drained, but she is happy to do it. Carlos learned today that Kmart in Yauco, his employer, will be able to give him and his associates a few hours. Fernando works at Old Navy and here at PHSU. Old Navy, in the mall, will be closed for an unknown length of time. His job at the school is paid by a federal grant, so that is still up in the air. Monday, maybe. Angel works at Macy’s, also located at the mall. No joy, there.
Fernando is able to withdraw some money. One less worry. Today.
Friday, September 29, 2017. No sleep. It seems melodramatic. But I am not exaggerating. I’m lucky if I get three hours. In the past several years, sleep and I have entered into a contentious relationship. A single melody repeating without surcease can keep me awake for hours. Several months ago, I devised the strategy of letting long, complicated pieces of music (first on the play list was Close to the Edge, by Yes) vibrate my inner speakers. These works are far from dull: It is their lack of repetition that I need. It prevents my getting trapped in endlessly looping endlessly looping endlessly looping endlessly looping snatches of melody. Maria voided my subscription to my internal Pandora.
And now, the generators of our neighbors, the guilt, the stress, the wondering when I will be able to make my car payment, the do you suppose the mayonnaise has gone off? all combine to equal one implacable monster of no sleep.
When I decide that there is enough light to warrant getting out of bed, I see that Ginger is floating upside down in the salad bowl to which he was transferred yesterday (his capacious tank a wriggling mass of mosquito larvae, water cloudy with dust and uneaten fish pellets and his own refuse). Lourdes cries when I flush him down the toilet. Then she lights the stove and starts the coffee.
Tati has a year and a half till graduation. Fernando, a master’s student at PHSU, is less than a year away from his. Bobby is an eleventh grader at a local private school. Of the three, it looks as if only Fernando will remain more or less on track. Tati will almost certainly have to add a semester to her estimated time of arrival. And Bobby. His school did not sustain a great deal of physical damage, but without water, we are told, it simply can’t open. Rumors of a week, two months, an unknown length of time have reached our ears, but rumors abound and are exactly as reliable as a fishwife’s gossip. What will my brilliant and gifted son do? My dad has already offered to bring Bobby to California so that he might attend the same high school from which both my father and I graduated. It’s a very good school and the temptation is great. Will you think me overwrought if I say I’m not sure that I can survive without my son? Okay, you’re right, it’s an exaggeration, but when I say that no one in my household, including the subject of our worry, wants Bobby to fly off to California, that is the straight on, no bullshit-hysteria deal.
Saturday, September 30, 2017. Little sleep. Last Thursday, when I sat down to reconstruct events in order to write this little time-travelogue, I had no idea what day it was. Just two days without time clocks and up-and-at-’em alarms and the day and date displayed prominently in the lower right-hand corner of my computer monitor served to make time and its passing an otherworldly conceit. I was astounded, upon firing up my office computer, to discover the actual day and date. For all I knew, at that moment, it was Christmas, and Rudolph and pals were chafing at their bits, Santa having dieted to chimney-sliding weight. Hyperbole, yes, but now that I am better fixed in time, before the dreamy past in fact becomes dreamy, I want to remind myself that we at times feared for our lives and for those of our loved ones. Not the fast (precious?) death of a collapsing roof or a decapitating piece of galvanized tin siding, but the long drawn-out death of starvation. Now, right now, several days later, I feel foolish and melodramatic for having given in to my hysteria, but when I was lying in the dark, sweat oozing from every pore, chugging generators the only sounds splitting the night, unable to find a position that eased the pain in my knee for more than five minutes, I spent pretty much every second obsessing over how long the two bags of rice, six tins of Vienna sausages, two cans of red beans, and two large tins of Spam would last. Well, plus four or five loaves of bread: For some reason each of us, in our various foraging missions, decided that what we really needed was another loaf of bread. That we have not starved to death is almost a letdown after all that internal drama.
Today, three things inform me that the crisis is over for the Ritchie/Maldonado-Vélez/Rosario-Maldonado/Ritchie-Maldonado family. (I recommend the Wikipedia article on Hispanic naming conventions if the preceding confuses you.) Though, to be precise, two of those things occurred after 3:00 PM yesterday, which was when I was floored to see an old friend, Anne Peterson, now with Americares. Still, I’m digging the immediacy of the present tense, so I’ll hold on to it.
A bit of a ruckus outside. I hobble out—getting around much better but still unable to outrace a stoned turtle—and see one of my across-the-street neighbors (Julian) approaching. He is carrying some kind of thin, orange snake. I squint, but the sun is setting behind him, blinding me to the nature of his gift. The quick among you will get to where it took me several seconds to arrive: It is an electrical extension cable. He asks, “Is your refrigerator running?” (In Spanish, so the old telephone prank doesn’t occur to me until this moment, as I am typing.) “No,” I reply. Silently, he offers his gift, pushing the slithering, powerful reptile into my slack hands, which respond by accepting the captured, tamed lightning. “And maybe a fan.” I am profuse, but he waves me off. Thank you, again, Julian.
You sharp-eyed individuals will have noted my use of “Little sleep” rather than the standard “No sleep.” The Friday-to-Saturday weather is cooler than it has been on any night since the electricity went, as is that of the Saturday day to follow. For those of you not up on the weather patterns in PR, there are only two seasons: the hot season and the hotter season. The hotter season is shorter than the hot season—extending from about mid-July to mid-September, with variations every year that can lengthen or shorten that range. Once one has lived here long enough, the lack of blistering days might even, in a relative way, approach the idea of “cool,” but I’ll leave such determinations to the weather philosophers. Number two, then, is that even though we will still experience an inevitable few nights of melting heat, the weather has, I believe, turned.
It’s the line. That is, it’s the relative lack of a line when Bobby and I go to Walmart—hardly 40 minutes. In addition, we hunt without a native guide. Shelves of boxed milk and tuna and such still bear the label “2 X familia,” but we wend our way through the Walmart jungle on a path of our own devising.
Sunday, October 1, 2017. A little sleep. Nothing momentous. In fact, other than to (in the future) inform you when the electricity comes back, I am predicting (hoping) that there will be little of note to report from here on out. The kids are flitting about, reacquainting themselves with the normalcy of LBM (life before Maria), but here at home, it is nothing but a dull, not-too-hot day. I feel odd celebrating those two conditions, but hurray for dullness and relative coolth! Long is the road that remains us, but we are well on it.
Monday, October 02, 2017. A little sleep. Bobby resumes school. A half day, but better than nothing. Dalia and Lourdes both are in the habit of saying “Pasito a paso, se llega lejos,” a liberal translation of which is Little steps take you a long way. This brings me to what Tati would call a first-world issue. I am an editor and a writer, an English teacher and—occasionally—a translator. Except for moments when I am addressing students in the classroom, everything I do is backstopped by the internet: Google translate, Thesaurus.com. Wikipedia, and internet search engines are critical tools of my trade. Looking back on what I’ve written, I ache to fact check: Was it Wednesday night from midnight forward or Thursday from midnight forward that we began to feel the effects of Maria. I suspect that latter, but I don’t remember and I can’t check. Sure, I could stand up from my desk, limp over to one of my colleagues, also working in an office dark but for a monitor, and ask, “Hey, do you remember . . . ?” But we’ll let first-world concerns drive the bus today.
Is “whistling past the graveyard” when you are trying to (magically? hopefully? incantationally? [I don’t need Dictionary.com to confirm that I have invented this word. . . . Or have I? I can’t check]) hold off what you fear by pretending nonchalance—which was how I used it—or something else? I can’t recall. I have become lazy and untrusting of my own knowledge. Is it really “pasito a paso, se llega lejos?” or am I misremembering? For someone whose job includes ensuring accuracy, this is a misery.
Tuesday, October 03, 2017. Some sleep. The electricity is back on! The ceiling fan in our living room swished to life at 3:15 PM, yesterday. Much scurrying about turning off closet lights, setting clocks, and such. I am betting that we owe this boon to our proximity to Damas Hospital, one of the major hospitals in Ponce. Whatever the reason, I am happy to be able to take a hot shower and sleep with a fan. This morning, I have an internet connection. I am shocked to see that 658 unread emails await my careful scrutiny. Most come from political organizations requesting my signature on this or that petition or soliciting my donation to this or that cause. It turns out that I am a cause—me and a few million others; any message not aimed at getting PR several million gallons of potable water (or like necessity) will feel the dread power of my “delete” button.
Strangely, the power normally supplied by the electric company has not made it to PHSU. I say “strangely,” because my newly electrified house is only a few hundred yards (as the changa flies) from the school. So I’m sitting in a dark, hot room, unable to connect to the internet. The school’s generator supplies a minimal level of electricity, and not all of the electrical systems in the research building are wired in. The spaces—labs, mostly—that are considered “vital” have outlets that are fed by the generator: I owe much to the importance of the previous tenant of my office, because at least there is power (and has been these last several days) to turn on my computer, if nothing else.
I read a single email this morning at home. From my sister. A mass shooting in Las Vegas and Tom Petty, brain dead (unrelated except in terms of being awful news). Now, at work, without an internet connection, I can’t get any details, but I’m horrified. And, calculating though it sounds, I fear the continuing catastrophe in PR will become old news. We are struggling to approach subsistence level, so much in need of national and international attention and support that this loss of coverage will, I suspect, result in a slowdown that we can ill afford. Right now, the dead and injured (and Mr. Petty) deserve the attention. But I hope that when the proper respect has been paid, the world’s attention will return to the plight of the people living without consistent access to water or power or required medication, and who are waiting in ATM lines to withdraw $100, the maximum allowed, only to then spend more hours waiting to buy that water and medication, as well as food and ice and gasoline. And then will have to repeat that entire process in a day or two when the water and the food and the ice and the gasoline are gone.
Wednesday, October 04, 2017. Sleep. This will be my last entry. Not because everything is perfect and beautiful and back to normal. Both the island and my family are so far from those descriptions that the mind boggles. Nevertheless, the long, arduous process of rebuilding is different from the time of disaster. Struggles remain, but for my purposes, the only thing that I can do from here on is hope that people pay attention, that they help, donate money, food, medication, effort.
I have been given to understand that there are some who are denigrating us, who are claiming that our efforts have been somehow substandard, who have the sheer effrontery to baldly state that we cannot be proud of what we have accomplished because we didn’t accomplish it! According to some, federal money, federal hands, federal machines are solely responsible for the progress that has been made—we (now including you, the reader) are being informed that the citizens of Puerto Rico are inefficient and lazy, are complicit in our own suffering. Worse, my mother informed me yesterday that an acquaintance of hers is going around claiming that this entire thing is a hoax, that the category 4 hurricane that decimated this island paradise is a fiction devised by . . . ? Such naivete should shock me, but denial is a most human defense, protecting us from what we cannot confront. Rather than rail against willful and toxic ignorance, I will turn away from it; I will open my mental photo album to a clean page and fill it with moments: Lourdes singing “White Christmas” (in Spanish; it’s her go-to happy song irrespective of the time of year) when the first blast of air from the revived ceiling fan hits her face; my neighbor gifting us with power; Fernando and Carlos emptying two hard-won bags of ice into the ice chest; Angel and Tati wrestling the mattress into the living room; Dalia heating milk for coffee on the camp stove; Chary preparing Vienna-sausage sandwiches, balanced on her one remaining leg because it’s too hot to wear her prosthesis; the people in my neighborhood cutting up and clearing away toppled tree trunks and fallen branches. Bobby, strapping my sandals to me feet. (Reluctantly.)