Stories from Puerto Rico

Reflections

Amazing. Inspirational. Heroes. Those are the words that so many of our supporters and followers in the states used to describe our work. Yet, we never really looked at it that way. We were not here to gain recognition; we simply saw a need we could fill and did so. I never felt like what we were doing was all that amazing until it was over. And then, as we were finishing our final job and my team was preparing to leave, I realized just how extraordinary it was. It’s impressive that we were able to put new roofs on 6 homes in 5 weeks, in addition to completing several small projects, and keep ourselves well-rested and healthy throughout. It’s also incredible to recognize all the ways we have been embraced, cared for, and appreciated in this community. And without a doubt this team has been nothing short of exceptional.

When I asked Ben and Til (Juan to our friends here in PR) about their highlights, both without hesitation named the people as the best part. The people we helped, the people we lived among and spent time with, and the people we worked with have definitely made the most significant impact on our time here in Puerto Rico. These relationships were the fuel that kept us both motivated and rewarded in so many ways, and we have been inspired, humbled, and filled with gratitude. With every home and community that we worked in, people opened their lives to us with endless generosity. We drank copious amounts of coffee, ate more than our fair share of food and treats, and happily gave our laundry to be washed when offered. A fisherman cooked his prize catch for us; neighbors lent their tools and generator; strangers bought us beers; a man with no furniture gave us each special parting gifts. Everyone gave what they could, and often wanted to give more than we wanted to accept. We had to learn to receive while also fulfilling our mission to serve.

Underlying our mission to help was also a strong desire to connect with the people and culture we were living within, and through this curiosity we found ourselves becoming a part of our community in a way that was both deeper and more significant than any of us expected. From our next-door neighbors to the friends we have made over games of pool in the local bar, we felt welcomed, appreciated, and supported in so many ways. Rarely a day passed when we didn’t spend at least a few minutes chatting with one of our neighbors, and if too many days went by without eating Carmen’s food or spending an evening there we would be sure to hear about it. We became regulars at local businesses and when we walked into our favorite bar we too followed the custom of greeting everyone we knew with a handshake, hug, or at least a smile and nod, before we even orderd a beer. These connections and customs taught us so much and we felt honored to have been immersed and accepted into this neighborhood.

When I was preparing to return to PR to begin the Rogues on Roofs project, I loosely referred to this group as the “dream team.” Although I had only known Ben and Til for a short time, our experience as part of the first group of volunteers at the Equus Center showed us that we could work together well and that we all enjoyed each other’s company enough to try a longer-term project. In the end, Dream Team turned out to be a pretty accurate description. Even now, when I think about how much time we spent together – working long hours 5 or 6 days a week, sharing a pretty small living space, and spending most of our social time together – it’s incredible how that only served to bring us closer together. I don’t know exactly how we did it, other than the fact that we shared a common goal and maintained a fluidity of communication together that allowed us to operate efficiently, make decisions as a team, and still care for each other throughout the process. We were a team in every sense of the word and I will be forever grateful to Ben and Til for everything I learned from them, and for helping to make this dream a reality.

Many have called us heroes because of the fact that we were volunteers working for free, but really that’s not true. There is so much we have received through this experience, far more than what money could buy. This experience has given us so much beyond the satisfaction of a job well done. We are walking away with lifelong friends, with open doors in a beautiful place, with hearts full of laughter and joy, and with the feeling that we made a real difference and changed lives. It’s there in the smiles and laughs, the repeated blessings and benedictions, the hugs and kisses, and the speechless, tear-filled gazes. Being able to help people when they least expected it, making dear friends who showed us what community really means, and to feel appreciation and love from so many; that was all the compensation we could ask for.

-Lisa (3.11.18)

Broadly – Do We Do What We Can?

I received feedback in regards to The Complexity of Help essay that is a discussion starter, so I will start that discussion here, one that I hope you have around your dinner table. The feedback challenged my assertion that “we all do what we can” to help out (last paragraph). My friend believes a slightly more pessimistic version of the truth which is that most of us could do a whole lot more. So that’s the question: When we take an honest look at our lives, do we help enough, or should we being doing more?

For starters, I can speak for the four us here that our hearts have been warmed by the amount of donations we have received. The support has far exceeded out expectations, and some individual donations have made me teary for how they represent friendship, love and trust. As my mom said, “People have wanted to help but didn’t have a way they felt comfortable with.” I didn’t send any money to Puerto Rico after the hurricane either, so I get it. Most of us only want to give our money away if we know exactly where it is going. The apparent corruption in at least a couple of huge charity organizations may make this position wise. I think it is fair to say that based on the donations we have received, many people are now helping Puerto Rico because they can.

It is also hard to volunteer and feel useful in an average volunteer setting. I help with food baskets a couple times a year at UNH. Fortunately when I arrive, it seems like the baskets are going to get done without my help. I still show up though because of the couple of times that I was there when five more sets of hands would have made the evening of work a whole lot shorter. As another example, my mom runs a program that has so many people who want to volunteer that she has to turn some of them away. A friend of mine’s job is to connect college students with service opportunities because it just isn’t that easy to find those opportunities for themselves.

Without easy ways to volunteer and without people we trust to give our money to, what are our options to help those in need? This experience in Puerto Rico has shown me that those of us who have the skills, time, and energy to get the ball rolling on good work need to do so, and the support that we need will come. I was certainly wrong in saying “we all;” there are many, many people who can and need to do a lot more to make the world a more equitable place. However, if you are reading this, you are the “we all” I’m now addressing. We need to set an example of generosity with our time and money. We all need to set an example with our creativity for solving problems. Set an example for who we are willing to have a conversation with. Set an example for what luxuries we are willing to give up in order that someone else follows suit. When we are already doing this, we need to look around and be energized by the positive response of others – I am energized by you.

- Ben (02/10)

The Complexity of Help.

Triage is nearly impossible work. In a mass casualty incident, the first responder is looking to sort the victims into four groups: deceased (black), immediate care needed (red), delayed care needed (yellow), and minor care needed (green). The first responder then puts a card on the victim, letting that person and other first responders know what their status is. Though we aren’t leaving tags on windows, we are attempting to use this system to prioritize people’s homes. To some extent, this part of the work needs to be done with a cold heart, one that doesn’t immediately fall in love with a kind face or a heart-wrenching story.

In triage, even a living person who is unlikely to live with immediate intervention is tagged black; it would take way too many resources away from the rest of a needy population to do a full assessment of the gravely injured. When we met with the mayor of Gurabo yesterday, we basically said, “We don’t want to look at any deceased homes.” We just don’t have the time or money to be reframing huge sections of entire houses. No doubt, these homes will eventually become uninhabitable because it doesn’t seem any agency has the resources to take them back from the brink.

We are looking for the “immediate care needed” homes. The homeowner already has put a tourniquet on their house, but that tarp is now slowly starting to bleed through, the floor getting a little more wet every day. We were shown two “red” homes yesterday, currently occupied and need of immediate work. The furniture isn’t in its original location so that water drips can be caught, and the blue tarp, though expertly placed, will be removed by the next significant storm. The home can be saved, and the original standard of living restored, if we get a roof on in the immediate future.

As triagers, it’s incredibly difficult to look someone in the eye when we arrive at their home and see their hope, knowing that we may have to walk away. We have also looked at two “yellow” homes. Both had partially completed second stories in which the roof was poorly framed, causing it to entirely blow off. Made from poured concrete, the second story floor, that formerly served as a roof, now lets water trickle into the house below, the new walls forcing water to pool and then seep down. Generally speaking, families who have enough money to build a second story are doing OK. In one of these homes, the matriarch recently had a stroke, but the generator that runs the medical equipment also powers a flat screen TV in a nicely finished living room. We talk matter of factly, coldly, about how much work needs to be done for such little gain. They aren’t suffering enough to warrant our immediate help.

The philosophical paralysis that happens during this process is fascinating. There are far too many questions to answer: How much help is enough? Is it better to do more for a few or a little for many? Is it worth it to tarp a building that in the States would be condemned or walk away after putting a roof on a home that needs to be gutted? As a work crew from the states, how do we reconcile the differences in building standards, cultures, communication, and priorities we are finding here. How do our values and beliefs cause us to judge others when we are helping them? How do we reconcile our opinions of what others should do with the reality of the choices they do make? How do their choices and priorities impact our desire to help? How do we determine who gets the help and who doesn’t?*

The truth is that we all triage all the time, a fact that can serve as a muscle relaxer for the paralysis. We all know that there are more needy people in the world than in Puerto Rico and more needy people in Puerto Rico than we have seen. The truth is that we all give and help in a way that is comfortable for us. We give to causes that we like rather than that represent a scale of suffering; Oxfam is competing with the SPCA for donations. But we also give to people that we trust, which is why we have the money that we do. (Thank you!) Thus, already inherent to us being down here is imperfect triage; we aren’t helping the most needy of the world, but just a few families who we can easily access. With an ever-discerning eye, we need to embrace this fact and still act like someone’s life depends on our work because it does.

-Ben (1/30/18)

*Series of questions by Lisa

The Barber

The warmth of not just the sun, but the people makes it impossible for me to leave Puerto Rico just yet. This is my favorite interaction here, so far.

As my beard grew to a length completely unreasonable for a hot climate, I was lucky to notice that next to the laundromat, where we could finally wash our perennially damp clothes, was a hole-in-the-wall barbershop. Puerto Rico is clearly a place where tourists are seen almost everywhere, but I sense that that seldom do they find themselves in this working-class part of Caguas. Pink of Coin Laundry was one of busiest laundromats I have ever seen, with dozens of people milling around while they waited for the decades old washers to stop spinning.

The lack of tourists in the neighborhood may explain the absolutely perplexed looks I got from the men inside the shop. As they looked me up and down, I noticed their sculpted beards, demonstrating their artistic inclinations, but also framing their faces with a certain toughness. However, when I explained in Spanish that I simply wanted my beard trimmed, they were happy to have me sit in their swivel chair. The man cleaning up my look talked on his phone the entire time, I think trying to make plans for the afternoon.

When he was done, I asked him what it would cost, to which he replied, "Two-dollars." I have gotten shaved in a lot of different countries now and that is among the cheapest price I've heard. (When I first started traveling, I usually asked beforehand what a service like that would cost, afraid of being ripped off. I have learned, however, that assuming the person is honest often leads to a much more pleasant interaction, so now I wait.) When I handed him a twenty dollar bill, he took a wad of cash out of his pocket, complete with ones and fives and tens, and then put it back away. He had changed his mind; my shave was free. I had made no mention to him that I was a volunteer so he wasn't thanking me for that. He was simply saying, "Welcome to my country."

-Ben (01/22/18)

A Gift of Water

On our last full day at the Equus Center, we awoke to find that we no longer had running water. Although we had gone without it for the first few days, and intermittently throughout our three weeks, it had become so constant and dependable that we began to take it for granted. So much so, that in preparing to leave our camp we had dumped the last barrels of untouched reserve water, and neglected to refill them. I can still hear the words echoing in my head - we've had constant water for so long....

What a good lesson in gratitude, and being mindful of how quickly a valuable resource becomes an afterthought.

By the time we completed the few remaining projects, packed away our tools and cleaned up our campsites, we were as filthy and dirty as every other day at the farm. The original plan was to pack ourselves and everything into our truck and shower at the home of our host, twenty minutes away in Caguas.

As folks were saying goodbye to the neighbors I was frantically trying to get my act together, and, like most days I was a hot filty mess, though even more so because I was in a hurry. All I could think about was how much I wanted a shower. But when someone came up from the neighbor's house saying that we could shower there, I declined. I didn't want to impose. No, they insisted, please shower there - Carmen really wants someone to shower at her house. It would make her happy, they said. So, I did.

Eventually, four of us ended up showering at Carmen's. She opened her home to us and even gave one of the girls several clean shirts to wear. She was thrilled to have us there and enthusiastically offered for any of us to stay at her home any time we came back to visit. She offered soup and we brought some cheese and crackers to share. But the thing that sticks with me the most is that as we drove away, I was trying to figure out how Carmen had water when we didn't; she's just right across the street. "No," someone said, "her water is turned off too, but they have a cistern on the roof."

When the water is turned off, no one knows how long they will be without it. No one knows if their reserves of water will be sufficient. Carmen gave us all a luxury that evening, knowing that might mean a future sacrifice for her own family. I am amazed how often I see those who have so little still wanting to give what they can, however they can.

The thing is, I believe that people helping people is one of the most powerful forces on earth. Those of us who showed up at the farm wanted to help. We brought what we could - a range of skills, tools, knowledge, and energy. We worked as hard as we could and gave as much as we could. And when you put yourself out there like that you receive far more than you give. Carmen took a risk by helping us too, and hopefully by accepting her offer we were able to give her some of the same gifts we received by helping the farm.

-Lisa (01/20/18)