A MEMORABLE CONVERSATION

I WAS TAKING notes in my notebook, sitting in an uncomfortable homemade sofa in the lobby of a far away hospital in Aibonito City.
For the last twenty years, in Puerto Rico there is a trend to write direction signs and those in city vehicles in English, for some urge of being closer to USA.

Any way, this guy asked politely if he could sit to have his recently bought fast food. If I did not mind. I said no with some feeling of surprise. Such manners are not the rule in the asphalt/concrete isle. The conversation started, I put aside my notes.

Mr. Marrero, pale skinned, around 5'10", perhaps 190, with glasses, a smooth voice, good diction and ability to tell anecdotes, came from Tampa where he lives with his family. His house is one of those with turf and a swimming pool. Retired from
from all you can be: US Army. Had spent the last five days at the hospital
taking care of his mother, and of his wife before that, after some serious
surgery.

At my age it is rare to find Puerto Rico nationals with the ability to keep
a conversation with space to listen besides the talking. This was one of
those realy rare situations.

He had left the island from his hometown of Barranquitas, another small
town in our neck of the woods, at the age of seventeen. Went to Philadelphia, thanks to the kindness of a friend who bought the airfare.

One of the first adventures in that foreign, cold land, was witnessing the
murder of another national in some bar fight spilled on the street. The victim received one of those mortal cuts from ear to ear. When he asked
his roomate, about the occurrence, the response indicated that it was usual, customary to see that type of incident once a month.

We talked about discrimination. Why do people discriminate foreigners.
I mentioned that it is logical to dislike people who go to your country with
inddiference towards the habits of the host nation. I mentioned the first
experience I had in Chicago, the miserably cold, windy, beautiful city.

It was just a party in the apartment of some puerto rican fellow. When I entered the lobby of the apartment building with Adolfo Jimenez (RIP), at the time the director of the Bilingual Program, al was fine. However, when we exited in the fourth floor, the stench of fried food and lard had
covered the whole floor. I found it disgusting.

Imagine the smell of Indian food and so many excellent gastromical dishes
from so many countries in heated aparments in a country that certainly
cooks or used to cook without species of any kind, bland food, without smell except during cook outs.

That is one. The other is the absurd habit of speaking loudly as hicks do
in their country surroundings far away from each other. Or the other,
listening to music all the way up, placing the speakers on the window
sill, creating havoc among the native population. Too often is music I do not like for reasons of taste, in one hand.
On the other, the ignorant use of a stereo system that in the past had trebble and bass control, to eliminate distortion and vibrations, a really
annoying thing.

Perhaps the best story to explain discrimination, is the one of some islander from New York and her husband an Ecuadorian, who moved next door to Mr. Marrero. They have loud parties constantly, allow the turf
to deteriorate and the swimming pool became an algae pond, green and
thick! People from apartments, who had lived all their life in such, have
no idea on the expense and requirements of keeping up a house.

To put the end close by...We also talked about nature, insects, birds, squirrels finding ways to eat the bird food, insecticides, herbicides and the results to careless people. USA government and the need to
impose democracy in countries without oil, but allowing the Arabs and
such, their feudal ways, without rights for women and others.

There are other details that escape my mind. But three remarkable themes were not touched: music, religion, politics. Perhaps that is
what makes the conversation memorable. An exchange of perspectives,
shared, not impossed. ONE in a million.