Stranger in my land - Tourist for a day

    When encountered with writer's block, one is often advised to "write what you know". This not only makes the writing more fluent, but it also increases our chances of writing something truly remarkable, as by "writing what you know" you are writing what you believe, you are getting in touch with your truth. With this in mind, I decided to do my tourist for the day exercise in a place I know deeply well, my hometown of Manatí, Puerto Rico.

Air view of Mar Chiquita Beach

     Although I was officially born in San Juan, I lived in Manatí my whole life up until college, when I moved to study in San Juan. Another reason why I chose to do my little social experience in Manatí is because I believe where you are physically influences your behavior so much, and I thought in Manatí I would feel more comfortable with my well-known surroundings. I decided to go to Mar Chiquita with my boyfriend, one of Puerto Rico's most breathtakingly beautiful beach. One interesting fun fact that most people who are not from Puerto Rico don't know about is that the people from the metropolitan area (San Juan and nearby municipalities) refer to those who are from farther away as "people from the island". Weird, right? It's so ironic! I remember thinking (the first time I heard this expression): don't they know we're all on an island?! Well, we "people from the island" don't like it, but we also believe that you cannot find beaches as beautiful as ours if you're too close to San Juan...

Mar Chiquita Beach

     What you see in these pictures is what we saw as soon as we stepped out of the car. I've been going to this beach ever since I can remember, but its beauty is still overwhelming, no matter how many times I visit. I sometimes wonder if my exaggerated admiration for it is due to the fact that I want it to be beautiful, as it is located in a place that has made up such a huge part of me. Then, I look at the person standing next to me, and I can see that same fascination in their faces. My boyfriend has lived in Condado his whole life, and when we go to Mar Chiquita his face lights up. Every single time. That's when I know, it truly is beautiful!

     However, this is not the only thing that we see. Since we went to the beach during a busy Sunday, we saw numerous groups of people everywhere with very loud music (mostly bachata and reggaeton) competing with each other. As much as I've spent many of my younger years visiting this very same beach, this time something felt off. For the first time, I felt like I didn't belong. I felt, if I may, "othered".

     For starters, I've never been a huge fan of reggaeton and bachata. Also, I find that a great part of how I was feeling has a lot to do with perspective. I went to the beach on a beautiful Sunday with my books in hand and plans of playing chillout music on my iPod while getting some schoolwork done under the sun... reality had other plans.

My happy math books enjoying a tan

     After realizing I could never compete with the noise of my "ghost of music past", I eventually gave up on my mission and decided to enjoy a good old fashioned beach day, no iPod or studying included. That's when I actually started enjoying my time there, regardless of the bad music. Then, we decided to interact with people as tourists. We went to buy some local fritters (Puerto Ricans love their fried food!), and to our surprise, the person who sold them started to attend to us in English even before we spoke a word! This happens to me all the time (I assume the color of my hair plays a key role in this), but it never happened to me in Manatí before! Wow, did I feel left out!

     As the conversation went, the kind gentleman made a nice effort in explaining what an "alcapurria" is. For those of you out there who haven't had the chance to indulge, an alcapurria consists of fried yams filled with spicy ground beef. Very unhealthy, very greasy, very delicious! After paying (he did not try to take advantage of "the tourists" by charging a higher price), we sat on the sand and got lost in our alcapurria's greasy deliciousness too quickly for me to take a picture, so here's one, courtesy of the World Wide Web:

     My visit to Mar Chiquita resulted in a mixture of conflicting emotions. On one side, I felt deeply proud of my beach hometown and all of its beauties, while on the other I sort of felt like a stranger in my own land. After giving it some thought, I've made my peace with it. People move, they grow, they learn, they change... and that's all ok. It's life!