Desde Puerto Rico: A Message From My Heart Through The Earthquakes

Growing up, my mother taught me that there are two things you never tell people, your issues and your dreams, because they will try to put salt on both. Yet, these past few weeks I have cried a lot and struggled to do my website both literally and figuratively. I have been in the earthquakes currently striking Puerto Rico as my family and I are from Guayanilla: an epicenter of most of the current stream of quakes. 

Guayanilla is a small town: where everyone knows everyone. The church that most news’ outlets show as a crumbled symbol of our current devastation was where I got baptized. It is where my cousins married, and where we held the funerals of beloved uncles and, most recently, my beloved aunt. It was where my grandmother would make me do the sign of the cross every time we walked passed as a respect to the Virgin Mary: her altar being the only thing to stand in the rubble of the church. Homes that I walked by to laugh with neighbors or watch them gossip with my aunts are now dust: no longer a colorful emblem of the love they once housed. As for my beautiful town, we have been in the Coliseo of Guayanilla: sleeping in cars and jolting awake, by the hour, because the earth begins to tremble. 

I didn’t realize I had PTSD until, even when the earth was still, I swore it was still shaking or every time a truck passed by I truly believed another earthquake was coming because, just before one would strike, it sounded exactly like that. My mother described the sound like the earth roaring to remind us, humanity, that she owned us, we don’t own her, and she is not loyal to us, as well. The earth does not stop shaking in Puerto Rico, and though we are tired, she still hikes the magnitude and profundity of her quakes with no worry if our homes or our people can stand through them. I’ll never forget the morning of the 6.4 earthquake, which should have been the morning that children open there Three Kings’ gift: a MAJOR holiday in Borinquen.

As the Earth began to shake uncontrollably, up and down and side to side, my family screamed: each of us calling the others’ names as we tried to get oriented towards an exit. I tried to grab my mother who froze in place: in awe of what was happening. We like to think that, when crisis strikes, we will automatically become Superman: filled with clarity and strength. The truth is that most tragedies take only a few minutes to disrupt and devastate an entire lifetime, and all our brain can muster, within us, is stillness and shock. My grandmother screamed the “Our Father” at the top of her lungs, and has done so, every time, as the current aftershocks feels as powerful as their original earthquake. At my uncles’ my aunt broke down, believing the house had caved on her. Meanwhile my other aunt and cousins held each other presuming this was all our end. The sole beauty of that moment was that, in our believed finale, we grabbed each other. No one thought of the world and its issues or their phones and laptops. We forgot our gnawing career goals and dreams of luxury. All we remembered is to hold on to the ones we loved. 

As I walked out of my grandmother’s house, who lives in Yauco, I saw her neighbor, a stroke victim whose entire left side is numb minus slight feeling in his left leg. He was hugging his son who has down-syndrome. I have seen that jovial boy grow from being a kid who loved to feed the roaming dogs in Puerto Rico to a teenager that tends to the local viejitos’ front lawns. I have never seen him cry, but as I walked out of my grandmother’s small, humble home, I could see his father holding him as he cried from shock: he was rubbing his back with his right arm, which still had a little function. The next day, he sent the boy to his mother, and has spent the days since lonely and terrified: understanding if another, worse quake comes, he could very likely die. With each earthquake, he is the last one to leave his home because of his disability. Like many disabled, he fears that, more than Hurricane Maria, these quakes could hold his doom. 

Many stay suffering the pain of these constant swarm of earthquakes because either we believe they will end soon or are shocked they have lasted so long. Yet, many are still here because they can’t afford to leave or they don’t have family abroad to stay with for safety. This is especially true for a lot of my grandmother’s fellow elderly neighbors, who watch more and more nearing houses get empty and wonder whether, if like in Post- Maria, these people will not come back? Our culture is so particularly rich and original, it is hard to let go of our island but we feel endangered. With the cruel comments that even I have received, online, of how Puerto Rico deserves its suffering and that Boricuas are savages, it is hard not to feel like like the Isla Del Encanto is being treated like a ship wrecked beyond repair and forced into desolation.  

If you ask any of us, from Guanica to Ponce, where I hold many family members, as well, we would say, “I’d take 10 Hurricane Marias” over this earthquake. The constant shaking and uncertainty as to whether this next quake will be “The Big One” has left a people known for their cheer feeling desperately anxious: one of my neighbors dying from a heart attack out of the constant tension. The worst part was that we knew we would be abandoned. Though we pay taxes, Hurricane Maria taught us that the aid we deserve and need, especially by FEMA, was held and dictated by prejudiced hands. Part of our building stress, the day before the massive earthquake, was that we knew we would be alone through this national tragedy and we were still tired from the last one. 

Puerto Rico has had to work so hard, both literally and spiritually, since Hurricane Maria to feel the natural love for life that is within us. We are an unbelievably creative people and love to party and laugh: often using the latter to heal from the many historical degradations and deadly oppressions we have, seemingly, always suffered by foreign hands. Thus, at the “Refugio,” where most of the Guayanilla is currently staying, including my family, you will find clowns entertaining children, the community watching movies in an inflatable TV, and people laughing and commiserating as if we don’t feel the earth tremble while we converse. Prayer circles shines as brightly as the stars with people truly believing en “la oration hay fuerza.” For us, God is the only one who consistently protects us when even our fellow humankind and government does not, which means our prayers are like life-lines to Him. Are we terrified? YES, WE ARE! Are we brave and strong enough to know that even in the face of death, the best of life is worth savoring? YES, WE ARE! 

Puerto Rican people are some of the most resilient people you will ever meet. We are loving, kind, fun, and worthy of respect and honor. Seeing how we still smile and treat each other so warmly is massively moving to me. I admire my people’s magnificence, and they have taught me a powerful lesson. I think many of us, like myself, are currently trying to figure out why hate exists and how it works or is born, particularly, because the world has grown incredibly dark. We know that a bad moment can turn someone into a villain, and wonder whether an act of kindness is powerful enough to save them, of which, perhaps, it is. Yet, these weeks I have learned that seeing how loving people love and supporting them as the try to love more and be better through insurmountable sadness is equally as fascinating and worth observing and protecting.  

With Love,

Diandra