Puerto Rico… ahh, where to begin…

Well, I’m writing part of this on the plane as we leave San Juan after a week in the city and a week living the country like in Orocovis; ready to return but sad to leave. Above all of the experiences, there is a key piece I will bring back with me: take time to enjoy life! I will truly miss the serenity and relaxed appreciation for life and family and friends and strangers everyone had. Too many times I feel that everyone forgets to slow down and take that deep breath we desperately need. In Orocovis, this was occurring every moment. Beginning during the first week, we held class next to the river! Despite the constant rain, we sat outside and had discussions in Spanish about the clinical process of interviewing and intake sessions with Latino clients. We were faced with powerful scenarios and had the support of the group as we took turns role playing therapist and client.

Afterwards, we took time to talk and provide each other with feedback, all while enjoying the sounds and sights our natural surroundings had to offer. All of the experiences were truly amazing, but the thing I most enjoyed was the natural beauty the Island had to offer. We made sure to take time to admire the ocean views, the native flowers, and the sunsets throughout all of our event-filled days and evenings. I am extremely grateful for all of the amazing opportunities we were given, the professionals we were able to meet, and for the amazing group of people with whom I made all of these memories with!

I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to experience the rich Puerto Rican culture first hand. I am also grateful that Dr. Torres decided to treat us with our hotel stay AFTER our stay in the country, and not vice versa. Actually, our stay in Orocovis, “the country,” was rather pleasant and relaxing. It was here that we had more time to appreciate the simplicity of rural life, and thus spent more time getting to know one another along with some of the locals. We were able to engage in a multitude of discussions with Dr. Torres’ family regarding topics such as cultural issues and politics, which allowed us to appreciate their unique experiences. Although I do not attend mass on a regular basis, I particularly enjoyed a service that was held in a church fairly close to our accommodations. It was a small church, but it was packed to the brim. I admired each and every individuals’ undivided attention and enthusiastic participation throughout the mass. I find the singing portion of the Catholic masses I am accustomed to to be particularly monotonous. That was not the case at the Orocovis service. If I had known the words and rhythm of the song, I would have loved to sing (even though my neighbor might not have enjoyed it). The songs were accompanied by culturally inspired percussion played over the speakers. The songs made me want to walk out of the mass a better person. The mass we attended was held on Mother’s Day, and it was really touching to experience the community’s appreciation for these hard working females. The mothers were applauded and led down the center aisle to receive some simple, yet heartfelt gifts.After soaking up the enchanting scenery of Orocovis for a week, we headed 1.5 hours northeast to San Juan. It is so neat to look at a map of Puerto Rico and match our pictures to the various areas we covered. I have come to realize that we covered quite a bit of the island during our brief two week stay. I absolutely adored Old San Juan. I’m a bit of a history buff, so I really enjoyed visiting the San Juan National Historic Site. El Morro, a massive defensive fortress, was built in 1539 to protect the port from enemies. It’s historic beauty was truly breathtaking. There was much to see in this area of the island, including many unique stores. It was difficult not to buy everything!

One afternoon was dedicated to spending time with a Puerto Rican familia. Havila and I were assigned to a humble familia in the mountainous region. Hesitation and awkwardness was quickly dismissed when our foster parent began showing us around her property. She pointed out various medicinal plants and vegetation. I was impressed by the natural supermarket/pharmacy the familia possessed outside of their home. Our afternoon quickly turned into an adventure as curiosity took us down a mountain trail to visit with the elder woman of the community. The trail was steep and we were surrounded by various trees, vines, flowers, and anthills. Once we made our way down the hill we were greeted by a petite woman swinging on a hammock. She was dressed in a long house dress, and her hair was long and pulled back into a thick silver braid. Although her frame was tiny, strength did not elude her as her embraces held us close. She discussed a distant time where life was simple and peaceful. Where no one could claim the life of another human and where a day’s work was dedicated to collecting the necessity for the day. It is a lifestyle which she still abides. She wakes at three in the morning to pick coffee beans to roast and grind for the morning coffee. Collects fire wood for her outdoor kitchen. Gathers gandules for shucking and boils them in time for lunch. It is a simple life – far from technology and directed only by nature. The natural beauty that surrounds her home is a reminder of the beauty found within an honest day’s work – how simple or laborious if may be.

If I could sum up my experience of the Puerto Rico immersion trip with one word, it would be: fantabulous. Frankly, I’m not sure if that is a word but I put fantastic and fabulous together because one word would not be enough to describe such an incredible experience!

I learned so much more than I had expected. I not only learned new Spanish vocabulary, cultural facts about music and literature, and historical information about the status of the island but I also practiced clinical interviewing in Spanish, I sat in a session in a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center, I sat in on meetings with psychology students and professors at the university of Puerto Rico, I attended a psychology conference and I sat in on a supervision class with fellow psychology students at Carlos Albizu University.

Wow! I haven’t even mentioned everything else I experienced while in Puerto Rico! The amazing part is that this was all done within two weeks! I have to give all the credit to Dr. Torres and everyone who helped him put all of this together in a little over a week before we were supposed to leave to Mexico. It speaks to his character as a person and to his determination as a teacher to make things happen for his students!

There are too many things to say and it would take me pages and pages to talk about all my experiences while in Puerto Rico! However, I’ll throw in a few first experiences and other random thoughts…

First Time:
-Visiting Puerto Rico-Meeting Dr. Torres’ family
-Hearing the Coquis (tiny frogs only found in PR)
-Staying in a tiny cabin next to a river
-Riding in a 16 person van
-Riding along MANY curves on mountains with steep sides!
-Riding a horse
-Getting bit by a mosquito that left me a huge round red circle around the bite
-Go into a huge cave where bats, lizards, cocroaches, ants, and snakes reside! (I did not see any of those except for some bats but they did not fly too low)
-Sitting by the beach overlooking the Carribean Sea

Random Thoughts:
-Rum + Coke = cubrelibra
-How can a coqui so tiny have such a loud sound?!
-Is it possible to avoid the curves?
-Dr. T calling us for class by banging on a pot…ah…the good ole days!
-Mama Torres teaching us typical puertorican dances such “bomba” & “plena”
-Papa Torres allowing us to participate in the sport of Puerto RICO: politics
-Meeting one of Dr.Torres’ mentors: Dr. Toro
-Dancing Salsa
-Going to an area called “pinones” & eating the amazing shrimp al mojillo with the best “mofongo”
-getting up at before 6:00am for group activities…more than once!
-Having class outside on a picnic table next to a river with coquis singing to us

Overall…I grew immensely after this trip. I found out more about myself and my capabilities and vulnerabilities. I also got to know everyone in the group on a different level. I love every minute I spent with everyone including all the people i met along the way. I feel so close to my group who will one day be my future colleagues. I feel a strong bond was created and this will keep us connected while in TCS but beyond that as well!

For the first week of our trip, we spent our time in Orocovis, a small town in the middle of the Puerto Rican countryside. We enjoyed seeing beautiful mountains, exotic plants, and amazing waterfalls. We even spent one day walking through a huge cave at Rio Camuy park. Throughout our time in Orocovis, we got to experience the lives of Puerto Ricans living in the countryside. The people lead simple lives in small homes spread out in the mountains. What surprised me, was the generosity of the people. One day we split up into groups of 2 and spent a few hours in a family’s home. Our family cooked us an amazing lunch! On another day a restaurant stayed open 4 hours later for us to cook us dinner! Even though people are spread out they still have a community where they come together through school and church. It was nice to take a step back from our busy lives in Chicago and gain perspective on how others live in the world.

After a week an a half of learning about the culture, foods, history, politics and taking classes to learn how this information can make us stronger counselors, I am even more interested in learning more about Puerto Rico and other cultures as well. We have been part of seminars, workshops, a conference, classes and have gotten to know my way around San Juan, Old San Juan, learn about the history. We also visited Orocovis the first week which gave us the opportunity to interact with people there, their lifestyle, the experience was great! Looking forward for the next few days we have left in Puerto Rico and hope to make the best of it!

Second day of waking up to sunshine! Yes, that’s right. It’s our 10th day in beautiful Puerto Rico and we’ve only woken up to sunshine twice! Luckily, we have the day “off.” Furthermore, the overcast skies and intermittent rain has allowed us to engage in interesting things without the nagging feeling that we really should be sitting at la playa! Now, on to some important things… On Thursday, we had the privilege of meeting with Dr. Toro-Alfonso, a professor of psychology at the Universidad de Puerto Rico. The goal of the meeting was to learn about his research related to the immigration of homosexuals from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico. However, we spent little time talking (en Espanol, of course!) about this specific topic and more time discussing the broad topic of homosexuality in Puerto Rico.One of the most interesting points that Dr. Toro-Alfonso shared was that his research has found that in Puerto Rico, there is no direct relationship between self-identification of sexual orientation and sexual behavior. That is to say, people will identify as homosexual but engage in heterosexual behavior and identify as heterosexual but engage in homosexual behavior. He went on say that Latinos (living in Latin American countries, not in the US) have no need live congruently – they are comfortable self-identifying as one and behaving as the other. This issue of living congruently seems to be impacted, at least in part, by the lack of a clear and concrete “gay” identity and group affiliation in Puerto Rico. In the US, it is common that one’s sexual orientation dictates a whole set of life style choices, so that a homosexual person may be more likely to live in a particular neighborhood, socialize in particular bars, work in particular professions, etc… However, this does not seem to be the case in Puerto Rico. Dr. Toro-Alfonso referred to the US pattern as ghetto-ization, while stating that in Latin America the homosexual community is more integrated. This is an interesting distinction but it does not seem to be a hard and fast rule. As Dr. Torres pointed out later, it may be less common to see clearly identified communities (think Rainbow flags draped across the street welcoming you to “Boys Town”), there is still often a subculture to which homosexuals gravitate in order to find comfort and a sense of identity. I should also point out that Dr. Toro-Alfonso was clear that both the Latin American and US societies are, in general, homophobic, but the organization of homosexuals and heterosexuals tends to look differently. I think there is more to discuss in terms of the psychological implications of this research, but we’re off to Old San Juan now so I’ll be back to share more of my thoughts…

Today we had a round table discussion about immigration due to sexual orientation and other research projects. Then, we spent the afternoon in Old San Juan where we learned about monuments and important sites.

We are now in San Juan, after spending a week in Orocovis, where we learned about the rural life in Puerto Rico and connected in a special way with nature. The University of Puerto Rico has received us with open arms and we are learning a lot from them. I can’t wait to share the many stories in person.

Getting everything ready and packed for Puerto Rico! This will be my first trip with the school and I am excited to learn more about Latino studies! It’s going to be great!