The nine percent or so that had power up until recently? A lot of them lost it. So it’s back to square one for a lot of those people. Some have gotten power for a few hours. Others, like me, are waiting for anything. An update, a sign of life, anything that will bring in some shred of normalcy back into our lives.
Water is in short supply. There’s no bottled water in any store that I’ve seen that isn’t overpriced to heck. I don’t have a car and it’s costly to uber. Some of the water that’s arriving isn’t drinkable in most places. Some people are going through creeks to take showers and drinks and some of those places are infected with rat urine. That is actually a thing now.
Yulín has been begging for water and I am too. This is impossible. They’re hiking up prices like they did in TX and it’s hard for me to leave the area. It’s hard for me to carry big packs of water.
It’s scary to think that the whole rat urine thing, which has always been a story for me, is affecting people in this island. Like, my grandmothers always told me to wash the tops of my soda cans so I could rinse off any potential bacteria up at the top of them. It was usually an attempt to deter me from drinking soda but it never really worked. I still would ask for Coca Cola anywhere we went out to eat.
Speaking of Coca Cola, it is hilarious to think that practically everyone in this island even in an emergency would prefer to drink Coke over Pepsi. There is barely any regular coke in stores. It’s one of those small luxuries people really want to afford. Others just go for the hard drinks because the Dry Law was removed when the curfew was extended yet again some time ago.
I’m at Starbucks and have been here most of my day. I still haven’t had lunch and have an errand to run. It’s hard to want to remain in communication with the world and not be able to. It’s hard for any service provider to give any real time update. I know the situation is difficult but some people are desperate or like me, upset since we had service and then it disappeared again.
I don’t want to say anything but I feel like I’m also getting sick on top of everything. I felt sinus pressure last night while cleaning up a couple of things and right now I don’t need this. I don’t need that on top of everything else that is just screwed up.
It’s hard to deal with all of this. It’s a complicated process. I can muster up the courage and try and ask when will Old San Juan will continue to keep receiving aid because it feels like everything’s stopped for us. The water coming and going and there’s so many light posts still hanging around. I’m thankful most of the debris was cleaned up but it’s heartbreaking to see so many people coming to OSJ to drink and those of us who live here still have to struggle to get any shred of normalcy.
I should really consider getting some food. I’ll try to keep writing as much as I can. It’s one of those things that is helping me.
Michi's World 