September 2017 was the beginning of many things for the citizens of Puerto Rico. The wake of two supernatural monstrous hurricanes left the island in awe and not in a positive way. The destruction of crops, houses, lands, fields, water and electricity grids, telecommunication channels, antennas and more left us the people who stayed without many necessities like gas, food, power and water, communications and those where the lucky half. The other half, the ones who live hours away from the city, the capital got it so much worse. They were left without the same necessities, clean river and lake water, roofs over their heads, cars and streets to drive out of the wrecked town.

 

In the efforts to help the recovery of the island after this unprecedented situation that some say God forced upon us. I’m not a big believer in god himself as you may already know and especially in this types of situation. I don’t believe there’s a god that would save some and sacrifice others, it just doesn’t make sense. Either way, whether it was god, bad luck, global warming, we are all in the same boat and we all stood to help one another. Thousands of volunteers independent or organization driven took part of the recovery of the island. Supplies were sent and were distributed and little by little some cities were better than others, others were forgotten. Fear, danger, crime and wariness ravaged those forgotten cities. They were left for last, without power, water or supplies.

 

Fast forward to two months from September and more than half of the island still lacks electricity, only 60% of telecommunications have been restored, there is only one internet company working and providing service, 30% of the island still lacks access to clean filtered water and there’s basically no gas to cook with our camping gas stoves.

 

All this facts later and I don’t know if its ignorance or that people have grown accustomed to their new situation but the conversation about the island and its livelihood has died down and we are more focused on events like black Friday, when will certain shops, restaurants and stores re open that the overwhelming reality that faces our island and its citizens everyday.

 

We need to reroute the conversation.