PUERTO RICO - US Dollar Mañana

 “I am sorry, sir, you will not make this flight”, pronounced the thorough US immigration official who was pre-clearing me in Montreal for the flight to Puerto Rico. While Canadians did not need a visa, I did not have the special visa required for my long-term sabbatical sojourn there,. As I took off only to head back home from the airport, all my luggage, including windsurfing equipment, took off for Puerto Rico (this was prior to the antiterrorist precautions concerning unaccompanied luggage on flights).
I was just seething, holding back my own explosion. The following week I spent on the phone with all kinds of institutions and agencies, including the University of PR and the local State Department.
You see, Puerto Rico is a US territory but not a US state. This dichotomy seems to also form its life - not life-style, however. The unsurmountable laid-back latin mañana attitude permeates everything and everyone – just take it easy.  But I needed that blasted visa and follow my luggage – ASAP. For that purpose, I ended up telling the local officials there what to do, and how to do it. Of course, it was their job to know but they did not – and did not mind.  Eventually, I received the right visa and a week later I presented myself , coincidentally, to the same officer who turned me down the first time.
“You know, I did not believe that you could do it that fast”, he remarked - and I was on the plane. With windsurfing on my mind, I realized and confirmed that Puerto Rico really WAS the place to be in –
A rare combination of sunshine, that laid-back Spanish mañana attitude – and the US dollar, telephones, air-conditioning and supermarkets. Blue skies always had their enchanting powers over me. When asked, I also let known that (at that time) Puerto Rico had the highest concentration of brand new and shiny pharmaceutical production plants in the world. All the biotech biggies were there:  Pfizer, Upjohn, Bayer, Eli-Lilly, and others, lured by the local tax haven. 

A unique opportunity to see the real biotech production, except that it was all strictly confidential. However, Puerto Rico worked its charm. Most of the Engineers in those plants were graduates of the local University (of PR). A phone call of the type “ Hi Pedro, I am a Visiting Prof. at your former Department, would it be possible to come and see you and your plant ?”  Invariably, the response was “Oh, si, señor, with pleasure – and let me guide you, any time”.  Done – and I learned.

Windsurfing too – I had to learn it all over again. Despite my previous skills, to windsurf the open ocean required different and more demanding techniques. When I mastered those, I spent “nirvana” hours hanging onto the little sail way out there until the island became a smudge on the horizon. That was crazy and today I have shivers going down my spine recalling that. Should anything have broken or happened to me – when out there, no-one around –
Well, nothing broke and I am still here. And I even managed to do some teaching there, learning yet a different rule of life on a tropical island. One should plan and could try to accomplish only ONE thing a day. Otherwise – deep frustration !  Polite smiles, pleasantries, yes – but no action, even in the air-conditioned office comfort.

We lived in a small house right on the university campus.  Our little Martin got very upset when all students passing by patted him on his shining-blond hair - “que lindo !”  That became his first Spanish. Children went to Anglo-Spanish school there, soaking in another language.
I noticed there how children learn a language. Mart was playing ball with some local boys, boisterously yelling something in Spanish. "What is it you said, Mart ?", I asked curiously.  "I don't know", he answered, "but when I yell this (a Spanish sound) - he passes me the ball". And that's how they do it.
 It was just a wonderful sabbatical year. When I came to Puerto Rico again, some 15 years later, all was so much the same, except for plastic and garbage piling up along all the roads. And this careless consumer society was still arguing whether to become – or NOT – another US state.  But doesn’t it take two to tango ?


   Surprisingly, people in Puerto Rico relate more to the mountains than to the sea. Nobody on beaches ! And we also had the university olympic-size swimming pool pretty well to ourselves.

   Deadly quick and mighty flash floods roar down those mountains even with sunshiny and clear local skies overhead.

   The local small planes look for the “hole in clouds” to land through the regular tropical downpours. Visiting, our grandma refused to board the plane when asked to sit over THERE to balance the plane -  "If it takes THAT to balance it, I am not flying" !
     
   I wished I had a shiny car like one of those that were overflowing student parking lots of the UPR.
 
   Touristy San Juan is not Puerto Rico, we were on the other side of the island in Mayaguez.
  

I must have some of these strong Czech peasant genes - I liked simple Puertorican national meal of "rice and beans". Well, as long as I could find also some pieces of meat somewhere on the plate :