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Away from Home during a Humanitarian Crisis


When I first moved away from Puerto Rico in my freshman year, I was filled with excitement about the prospects of living in a different country and what it would feel like to gain some independence. While I did miss home and the memories it brought with it, I had a lot of adventures to look forward to in college.

However, my reality changed when Hurricane Maria struck. I started to remember all the faults my home had. The crack in the ceiling of my room and how close we lived to the Dry Forest and the beach. I received a call from my sister the night before Hurricane Maria was supposed to hit the island. She tried to put my mind at ease, but we both cried when the magnitude of the situation hit us. We did not know when we would be able to communicate again. For the first time since I had moved to Syracuse, I hated being so far away from home. I did not want my family to go through this on their own.

In the next few days following Hurricane Maria, I saw everything through a dark lens. There was only radio silence from my beautiful paradise, and not knowing anything made me feel hopeless. I would be up at absurd times trying to console my mother, who lives in Ohio.

I listened to a community radio that gave us updates on the situation in my town, Guánica, and cried for hours. It was devastating to hear people say the names of their loved ones in the hope of learning any news about them without hearing a response, like unanswered prayers.

This went on for an entire week.

I grew more impatient with every passing day. Not knowing anything about my family made it impossible to concentrate. I couldn’t make it to class - sometimes because of the apprehension and other times because it seemed ridiculous to sit in a lecture and learn about microeconomics when I did not know if my family was safe.

One day, my phone started buzzing and I found the text messages my dad had tried to send during that entire week. There were more than thirty text messages with “Good morning cielito (little sky),” “we are fine and Diego (my cat) is sleeping soundly!” I ran out of class and burst into tears. The unexpectedness of the situation was overwhelming, but a sense of relief swept over me when my sister called right after.

I did not know then when I would be returning home, but I knew that the panorama of my town would certainly be different from the one I left this summer. Our national rainforest, a historic symbol of strength and resilience, El Yunque, will be completely unrecognizable. Entire coastlines have been distorted by Hurricane Maria, and my country will be facing an added struggle from dealing with the consequences of a Category 5 hurricane.

During the winter break, I met with my sister in Ohio and we flew back home to Puerto Rico. From the airplane, I could see FEMA’s blue canopies covering the new landscape. While driving back home from the airport, my sister and my dad would point out missing street signs, broken billboards, cracks on the street and roofless houses. I felt like an outsider because they would talk about these experiences from the hurricane that I have never been through and will never be able to fully comprehend. The hurricane also changed people in some ways. My nephew can only drink water from a bottle now, because he still fears getting sick from any other type of water.

My family was already getting accustomed to the landscape and the harsh reality of what Hurricane Maria brought. I was still processing everything. At times, I felt like a spectator of the island.

Hurricane Maria had a lasting impact on my life and those around me, and yet the hardships Puerto Ricans went through during the hurricane has made them a stronger community. I saw Puerto Rican flags everywhere; on cars, houses, in street art and also on clothes – an image of a community that is overcoming the consequences of an adversity together.

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