From the memoir essay:
DiaspoRican Manifesto: The 'Real' Story Behind the Curtain of My Colonial Life in Puerto Rico Post-Maria
[ no. reference links]
by Norma Iris Lafé
Vega Alta Emergency Shelter I Puerto Rico’s North Central Coast
(Incidentally, the ancestral birthplace of El Orgullo, or the pride of Vega Alta, Lin-Manuel Miranda, pictured prominently in la plaza de recreo, town square next to a light pole downed by Hurricane Maria.)
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Rolling her flaming red eye into a swirling ball of violent fury (Category 5 weather radar images and maps I could not erase from my panic-filled mind), as predicted, Hurricane Maria touches down on the Southeastern coast, along her “Fatal Attraction” atmospheric chase of Hurricane Jose, still pounding our Caribbean cousins further North. Three surprise! tornadoes join the Category 5 to make mincemeat of her point of entry, the major fuel port city of Yabucoa. The brunt of the storm demolishing the entire Eastern tourism coastline, also slamming the Southland’s rural municipalities. Not the least of all: the Guayama site of the notorious ASES coal burning energy plant and, the Salinas gateway to the island’s major electric power generator, the antiquated Termoeléctrica Central de Aguirre (two environmental ticking time bombs in my family’s home turf).
Continuing her 12 miles per hour cyclonic monster crawl to the surround sound of ROARING WINDS, the CLANKING of flying zinc roof panels crash landing, the crescendo of RAGING water rapids, turbulent ocean shores, rivers and streams rising to deadly flood levels (hot on the heels of “her man”). She takes the shortcut West. Slices through the whole 100x35 island in a diagonal direction, ravages the central mountainous zone, and exits the Northwestern coastal region, town of Arecibo, home base of the infamous Energy Answers waste incinerator plant, site of another environmental catastrophe endangering eco-systems and Puerto Rican lives. (A near miss of our coastal Vega Alta, originally falling inside the wider base trajectory cone’s speculated exit, for my miracle #3.)
Along her nihilistic path, She breathes in razor-sharp 160 miles per hour HOWLING winds [turbine engine wind thrusts as high as 200 miles per hour bulldoze the wide-open spaces, observes the celebrated meteorologist Ana Monzón]. She huffs and puffs and SWOOOSH! Blows down hundreds of thousands of houses. Rips humble wooden dwellings apart at the seams (as though they were popsicle sticks glued together). Violently yanks off their flimsy corrugated zinc roofs (the casual builder seemingly using long thumbtacks for nails). All to better zoom in, an “Accidental Tourist”, and snap a Selfie next to the extreme poverty and misery of ‘Forgotten Americans’ inside. Now fully exposed to the hole-in-the-ozone layer (atomic fallout) suffocating heat. Torrential rains leaking tears down the disintegrated walls, for the silent women and child victims of the underground sex trade, exiting from behind those closed doors.
[Now vulnerable to the double jeopardy of being destitute and at risk of further sexual degradation—among the unaccountable first 250,000+ refugees seeking survival in the States—suspects the PR Civil Rights Commission and concerned human rights activists urging El País, or The Nation, to focus more attention on our missing hermanas and hermanos who may have fallen on worst times. (El Vocero, Feb 26, 2018].
Hammering away with a vengeance (there’s no greater wrath than a woman scorned) she cracks open the rotting and dilapidated ‘Third World’ roads, breaking bridges and busting dams, loosening killer landslides in the rural mountains and urban hillsides of the more populous zones. Electric power lines, street lights and traffic posts, steel and cement communications towers: radio, TV, cell phones, satellite weather radar. All leaning Towers of Pisa that bend like rubber poles; collapsing under the weight of PREPA electric power company chronic disrepair, corporate corruption and widespread indifference.
Mounds of potentially live-wire cable debris barricade thoroughfares, clutter streets, get tangled in the fallen trees, vermin-infested escombros, or vegetative waste, endanger miles de comunidades, or thousands of communities, roadside rubbish that form unsightly monuments to Maria, if not removed, repaired, replaced or recycled.
[The official charge of the bureaucratic US Army Corps of Engineers lagging behind in the power restoration and clean-up of the 78 municipalities under USA disaster zone decree. Huge pockets of the poor and elderly are condemned to an inhumane and lethal existence waiting for the light switch to turn back on. Amid the blame game between the Army Corps and the Governor, and innuendos that the official government power restoration stats (87.43% at the time) are a distortion of island illumination reality, the Yabucoa Mayor Rafael Surrilo states for the record (San Juan Star, March 1, 2018), “The largest (blacked out) pocket of Puerto Rico is Yabucoa. We only have 15 percent energized, warning that “more people are dying than had died at this same date last year.” ]
(Never-ending crisis situations that start me to thinking something is amiss.)
Scrubbing the jagged pavements clean, in an OCD frenzy—while steering clear of harmless Homo Sapiens holed up in their homes—she peels off the paint from brightly-colored building walls, smashes costly glass windows to smithereens, the sturdier doors on cement structures break apart, blotching the beautiful outdoors with her eternal imprint…’Maria Was Here’.
Still madder than a junkyard dog, she shores up the “Save the Planet Stop Global Warming Movement". Stirs up the stench, blows the lid off overflowing garbage landfills and Superfund hazardous waste sites swept under the rug, and cooks up cloud storms of toxic coal ash, gas and fossil fuel air pollutants.
[The money-grubbing dastardly deeds of the Despicable One and his Legislative Minions intent upon dismantling EPA safeguards against the better interests of the Puerto Rican people.]
And with a most heavy Mother’s heart, she slashes through her resilient trees, grown to tropical paradise perfection in the land of the spectacular and frondous Flamboyán. Machete in hand. SNAP! SNAP! SNAP! Cut down, nothing more than mere toothpicks (oh no, not another tree). Restricting man’s natural oxygen supply, a WHIRRING Scissorhands prunes yet another hundreds of thousands of trees BALD and razes the lush and magnificent national rainforest El Yunque, los pulmones or lungs of Puerto Rico.
The varietal fruits agitated by the storm and homegrown self-sufficiency agro-crops, livestock and dairy farms, now flooded, are laid to waste on contaminated soil.
[Java growers losing 80% of the coffee harvest, and $10.4 million in local government agricultural subsidies, the infrastructural damages valued at another $13 million. The island’s colonial subjects consume 85% of foodstuffs at exorbitant import prices. On the verge of extinction for over a decade, Puerto Rico’s coffee industry supplies only 6% of the local demand, the PR Department of Agriculture importing 95% from Mexico. Primarily due to the lack of manos a la tierra, or manual labor, in a welfare state where (on balance) it makes more dollars and sense to live off federal handouts than it does to slave under the hot sun for an unlivable minimum wage.]
Trusting in Nature’s way: rebirth and renewal and return to tilling the rich soil so long as there’s a seed of hope—Moody’s estimates total island damages as high as $90 billion.
Ending her blowback rampage on humanity’s handiwork, she then puts her foot down and GROWLS. Clean up your environmental mess! Rebuild these substandard habitats on more solid ground using proper and safer building codes this time! And get on the renewable clean energy bandwagon, or there will be an even hotter hell to pay than my inclement ‘shake and bake’!!!”
Relentless shearing winds and lashing rains slam the shelter’s iron doors shut, the adjoining toilets so near and yet so far, bladders aching to burst. So Nature calls? She barks. You need to pee? Then do as your Father tells you! Time is running out!
****
Is it over yet? Have we cleared the eye of the storm? I whisper to my now-composed and vigilant daughter. My buttocks glued to the FEMA-furnished army cot, fixated on the windows behind her cot, perpendicular to mine, unable to stand and face the dawn of terror we awoke to, and get my butt to the bathroom. Yes Mami. The eye of the storm passed hours ago. You can use the bathroom. But be careful not to get pinched in the doors. Are you sure Mija? Although I’m ambling towards the only exit, I’m perplexed about the eye-wall’s fiercer wind gusts we were warned about. What about las ráfagas? The worst of the storm is over Mami, she responds. (Oh shit! That can only mean the rest of the island is done for!)
Hurricane Watch: Irma and Maria
We arrived with the first wave of refugiados seeking cover, having elected to ride out the storm in the Vega Alta emergency shelter, in the event Hurricane Maria’s powerful cyclonic 180 mph winds forcibly wrenched our second-floor wood framed house from its first-floor cement foundation. Besides our wunderkind Governor Ricardo Rossello Nevárez had made it resoundingly clear during his umpteenth Hurricane Watch televised address. I’m a scientist. The MIT graduate declares. The hurricane that’s coming has a force and violence that we haven’t seen for several generations. I’m asking you one last time, if you live in a house made of wood and zinc or have the slightest doubt about your dwelling’s ability to withstand Category 5 winds, LEAVE NOW! Get to one of the shelters set up in your Municipio. We’ll worry about the physical damages to Puerto Rico later. The important thing now is to save lives.
You don’t have to tell me twice, chicken little that I am, not knowing what to expect. But I could have kicked myself, then and there, for waiting until the last minute to take inventory of our remaining Irma emergency provisions and better assess our home surroundings.
On the night of September 6th, Hurricane Irma snuffs out the lights in the cul-de-sac where we lived. At about 8:30 pm hearing sounds of zinc clanking outside, I Freeze—Irma’s here! I leap out of my desk chair, fumble in the dark for my flashlight and call Mija to the dining room. Did you hear that? We both peer out the windows, our eyes agape at the neighbor’s detached zinc panels writhing on the curb and fear our rooftop could be next, to take flight and jettison on to the neighbor’s lawn.
Miraculously, Irma’s Cat. 4 tropical winds bounce off the Northeastern coast of the island, after using our tiny island of Culebra for cyclonic ‘bull's-eye’ target practice. Then shifting North—sparing most of Puerto Rico—to pummel cities in Florida and continue barreling the Eastern seaboard.Ten days later...
Hurricane Maria Watch finds me wound up tighter than a drum and writing with a frenzy, I'm cloistered in my bedroom, tuned in to the storm reports on NotiUno News/Talk Radio—"La Estación Oficial de Los Baby Boomers.” The Governor and his Fortaleza Emergency Management team appear to have the situation in hand. And I can feel somewhat at ease the capable technocrat is at the helm of a very nasty Hurricane Season. But I’m not feeling very forgiving after the stunt his administration pulled.
I’m rather, still foaming at the mouth over the ‘fake’ status plebiscite last June. In my estimation, the attempted hijacking of Puerto Rico’s future without the clear mandate of the Puerto Rican people is all ‘Spin, Lies and One-upmanship.’ (Yep. That is the nature of the beast, one cannot tell a Puerto Rican survivor’s tale without telling a tale or two about island politics.) I mean, I could understand: desperate times, desperate measures. But the ends do not justify the means. Not on my watch.
Mija stops her 24/7 Hurricane Watch on her smart TV and storms into my bedroom--writing on my tablet. My exuberant and smarty pants child, who I otherwise adore for keeping me on my writing toes, has given me an affectionate old ladies nickname (I’d like to ring her neck for).
PANCHA! Nobody’s interested in that right now. And why not? I snap back. The statehood push has the appearance of groveling for acceptance. It’s not the Puerto Rican way, I continue. And keeps reminding me of what Mami, your late abuelita, que’en paz descanse, used to tell me growing up a sheltered teenager in the South Bronx. With her usual proud air and quiet strength she made certain to protect me from the mean-spirited people in the world and taught me self-respect: “Si no te invitan, no vayas a tocar la puerta, que vas a pasar una vergüenza.” If you don’t receive an invitation (to the Union, let’s say) don’t go knocking on that door, save yourself the humiliation. It’s embarrassing for all of us, proud Puerto Ricans, to watch Congress shut the door in their faces, time and time again.
I know. But you need to stop writing, and take a look. Hurricane Irma has destroyed all of Barbuda. She blurts out.
The ‘Vacation Girl Interrupted’ is sounding a bit more uplifted than I would expect. Considering her weekend getaway to Culebra had been trashed by Hurricane Irma’s brutal descent. And the excitement of her long-awaited 3-week vacation, and much-needed respite from the heightened Casino Metro tension, was fast-turning into a real vacation downer, minus this moment.
Barbuda? I ask. Yes, Mami. It’s a tiny island in the Caribbean. The Governor’s humanitarian boat rescue of Barbuda’s homeless disaster survivors is all over the news and social media. We’re getting good news coverage for a change.
There he goes again. I am continually baffled by our maverick Governor who on occasion finds common ground for the greater good, showing signs the pro-statehood Democrat could be the “Glitch.” The one to closely watch as this 21st Century Puerto Rico status melodrama plays out.
In our paradoxical island world of ‘Haves and Have Nots’--Post-Maria--I have discerned there are (not two) but three kinds of people [the Mendicants, the Resilients and the Prescients]. (Sensibility sure to stir up more heated debate).
And then there are the Missing Ones: the displaced 250,000+ Boricuas who finding themselves homeless and hungry, jobless and under duress, deserted their hard-earned properties and cars, their beloved viejitos, or elderly family members, and yanked their underage children out of schools for a swift ticket to survival, leaving all caution to the wind. Abandoning that which they will most yearn from afar: their warm, friendly and fun-loving people of paradise. And why should this be? I’ve asked myself many times over.
Having my theories, insomuch as transparency is not an operative word in island government, I aim to solve the mystery of who’s who—the friends or foes of liberty—research that has a direct bearing on the island’s uncertain future. As I am on a quest to parlay a message galvanizing a ‘Back to Borinquen Movement’.
Nobody pulls the wool over the farseeing eyes of a Prescient, when it comes to the human rights of Mi Gente. (Frankly it would appear that nobody cares to heed the Prescients neither. Oh well... The truth is that which needs to be told.)
I hasten to put some finishing touches on my blog of recent revelations, post a message on my BlogSpot: “I’m on Hurricane Watch until further notice” and put a zipper on it—for the time being.
****
The day before Maria struck, Mija and I are standing in the center of our living room and spacious family kitchen. We both tilt our heads simultaneously to the 10-foot high triangular peak of wooden beams buttressed by the wall down the center of the apartment, the outer walls are camouflaged by decorative bone white and grey simulated thin wood paneling. Our stylish Connecticut cottage cozy environs, all the creature comforts we desired, was virtually untouched by Hurricane Irma.
Do you think it will hold up against Maria? I ask, interrupting Mija’s last-minute project (and panic) to insulate the windows with plastic coverings affixing masking tape along the borders to prevent the rains from seeping in through the venetian cracks and drowning the apartment.
A striking Amazon of a woman--two inches shy of six feet--whose curly mop of orange-red tresses drapes over her ample derriere and killer curves, resembling the mane of the immodest Lady Godiva. My more modest millennial girl is a Prescient (like me). A mother and daughter team joined at the hip, she senses and knows things before they happen. Meaning, we pay attention to the signs.
We need storm shutters, I had implored the landlord Barreto. The 30-year-old two-floor retro house withstood Hurricanes Hugo and Georges, he informed me (a little too confident, in my opinion, given the potentially destructive Maria). And so, we were on our own. And sometimes mother knows best. What Mija doesn’t get. I get. And vice versa.
I don’t feel comfortable imposing on the neighbors for shelter, Mami. Nor was I too keen on being among the destitute dumped in overcrowded waystations; over a thousand San Juan Metro Area Hurricane Irma homeless disaster victims were housed in the chaotic Roberto Clemente Stadium mega-shelter in San Juan.
Well, that settles it. I’ll contact the Municipio and see about the Vega Alta emergency shelters. Call your friend Evelyn, she may know where they’re located. It was already 8:30am when my former co-worker in the Federal Programs and Section 8 Housing Office answers the phone to my immediate relief. Hi sweetie. Sure. There’s a new shelter opening at 2:00 this afternoon. I’ll swing by and pick you up at 2:30. So be ready! (How lucky is that?)
When you’re forced to make split-second decisions about what to take and what to let perish in the rubble of the Hurricane threatening your existence, your entire life is reduced to what fits in one or two bags and trunk of the car. What is replaceable and what is not: Food and water (pack emergency rations for three days, can opener and cooler). Vintage framed family photos (place them in two water resistant plastic containers, move to secure shed downstairs). My voluminous book collection (Be quick. Stuff them in super strength black Hefty bags). Some overnight clothes (take comfort leggings, tank tops, one good outfit and pair of jeans and leave your one-of-a-kind accessories. No I can’t. LEAVE THEM! I said.) Nada. I parted with my fashion statements: straw sun bonnets, French berets, frilly colorful scarves, alluring head wraps, assorted costume jewelry, took a mental snapshot of my intricate wall display, and heaved a sorrowful sigh ‘goodbye my lovelies, may we meet again.’ And stuffed 3 bags, an extra one for my vital personal documents, book manuscripts and laptop.
A real road runner and rare individual, whose heart of gold glitters gladness to be of service to those in despair, my best friend Evelyn gets me to the Escuela Ladi middle school downtown lickety-split. Only one other family was there before me. I picked a prime spot along the outer fringes of the room (like Mija asked me to) for greater privacy away from the crowds. After salvaging more valuables, she joins me a few hours later. In her usual observant and forthright manner, she says. Mami, what kind of a shelter is this?
She cases the Home Economics Classroom-turned-haven for the poor, the elderly, the infirmed and wheel-chair bound, lacking the temporary lodging customarily afforded by close family members. That wall of venetian windows is not secured with storm shutters, Mija remarks, stressing out. We’re sitting ducks on the first floor. There is no escape hatch should the floods start rushing in. Mami, come here, take a look. When the winds start blowing, those huge stones strewn on the lawn are potential projectiles that can easily pound the windows and doors. I hadn’t considered any of that. She was right about the dangers to life and limb surrounding us, many classrooms in disrepair would be reshuffled and venetian windows come unhinged after the storm.
I’d say we chanced upon a 5-Star emergency shelter. Our quarters were designed for smaller intimate groups. The sleeping cots set up in separate classrooms, the Municipio staff and Vega Alta volunteers attentive, meticulous, warm and caring: like family. Sure, FEMA resources were on hand (albeit behind the scenes cutting corners).
Since time immemorial, Taino Indian inhabitants co-existed and appeased their God of tropical tempests Juracån. In today’s hi-tech world, Hurricane Watch satellite and infrared weather radar gives mankind the scientific precision to anticipate deadly tropical cyclones, while tracking the cooling phases of El Nino, the warming phases of La Nina, and the dust laden and dry Saharan Air Layer Polvos del Sahara of the oceanic atmosphere that normally suppresses the development and intensifying of tropical cyclones in the Atlantic. Deviations make large-scale impacts on global weather and climate, inform climatologists.
In recent memory, the deadliest Hurricanes being Hugo in 1989 (Cat. 4, 140 mph) and Georges in 1998 (Cat. 3, 115 mph) and the record flood levels of Hurricane-turned Tropical Storm Jeanne in 2004, that formed a waist-high wading pool surrounding and gushing into our Barrio Mosquito Guayama family homestead down South right before my frantic eyes! Back then, FEMA was quick to respond and process claims replacing personal losses and making it possible for the poor to rebuild fragile habitats using cement blocks, following up the FEMA award with applications for flood insurance, even. In fact, the Puerto Rican Georges landscape was blanketed in FEMA Blue tarps, like stepping onto a carnival of tents marking the zig-zag destruction of the Cat. 3 throughout the whole island, Vieques and Culebra.
So that, every year for the last 18 years, fleeing California Earthquake Country where there is no early warning system and I rumbled in the nerve-shattering 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake; I have held my breath during Hurricane Season, counting the alphabet letters from A to Z during the months of June to November as we braced ourselves for “The Big One”.
And always, it’s been the last-minute race to the supermarkets. Raiding the shelves of all the canned foods, water, batteries, flashlights, candles, lanterns, emergency provisions--a big bonanza for local businesses--for the 3 days foreseen by disaster preparedness experts should the Hurricane knock out the power lines and water systems (never giving a portable generator planta serious thought). We batten down the hatches, pray to the heavens up above and come what may we “take it like a man.” Safe in the knowledge, also, that FEMA has our backs.
¿Viene o no viene El Huracán? Is this Hurricane really coming? We ask one another in passing, admittedly, developing overtime a self-styled sense of security and ultimate faith that Papa Dios, the man upstairs is watching over us. Only this time, the atmospheric conditions were not present for the last minute shift in direction North or South of Puerto Rico.
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