Notes From Puerto Rico & Beyond
The crumbling observatory in Arecibo is a metaphor, I guess.
I was in Puerto Rico for a this March visiting my dad’s side of the family.
Traveling there as a kid often came with driving through the central mountains to visit my older brother. His mom’s side of the family is from the north shore. When he got into some trouble in New York City, he was sent to attend high school in Arecibo. During visits he’d buy us cola slushies and empanadas de pizza, and then we’d all drive up to the iconic dish that pointed at the stars. The scale of it was dizzying. I’d wanter around reading the signs about the work that was made possible because of the telescope.
My friend Paola, a fellow science journalist, grew up not far from the Arecibo Observatory and wrote about what it was like to see videos of its continued collapse into the wilderness around it.
Before it crumbled I used to imagine that it was a huge sentient creature that was born from a mix of the natural landscape and computers. I’d dream of it as a child, especially after I saw it in the movie Contact. When we drove to Arecibo in early March, we stopped by a hotdog stand on the side of the road. Across the road a sign pointed with an arrow into the distance, showing us the way to the telescope.
We promised each other we’d try to get close to the observatory on our way back to the south. We drove to my older brother’s former hometown. When we were there, he reminded his aunt that I write about science and fact-check for work different magazines. She wanted to know if I was concerned about recent events. She was worried about endangered species, clean beaches, access to her necessary medication, and about her older relatives. Her neighbor leaned over the fence. “Papá díos siempre castiga lo que se hace en vida,” she said. God always punished what’s done in life. My brother’s aunt shook her head no, she wanted to see consequences for environmental damage now. “Today, “ she said.
The next day, I met up with fellow freelance writer and researcher that night for food and drinks alongside both our partners. That’s where I learned about the clean water regulations that had been rolled back this March.
“Guess the government decided ‘fuck it, sewage in the water’,” we joked. I laughed and chugged a can of medalla. I wanted to cry. I added ‘read Love in the Time of Cholera’ in my notes app when I ran to the bathroom.
The rest of my time there was spent running errands for relatives, grabbing snacks for friends in NYC, and trying to forget how cold the city was this winter. I never made it to the observatory. For now, it’s just a sign pointing in the opposite direction.
Some reading suggestions so you don’t crash out:
A Climate Change Guide for Kids.
And I’m currently devouring the book Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman.
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