Personal photo diary by Valerie Moreno de Batista
During what seemed like the longest night ever we noticed the winds were bringing water inside our apartment. So we ran and grabbed all our towels and linens and shoved it under our entrance door and windows. The wind was so powerful that it would just push it away. Thankfully after a while the weight of the water made it stay in place and kept our apartment from flooding.
After the hurricane (about 24 hrs) hiding in our room (safest place for that) we learned that the whole island was in complete shut down. We had to stay in our apartment for at least 36 hrs more.
Some people were brave and came to visit us and check on us regardless.
I'm not used to staying inside for such long periods of time so we started adopting a really slow type of living. Occupying our minds with reading, praying (just so thankful, in shock and disbelief), napping (because we had not slept), cleaning and in my case painting and crafting.
I painted this after the storm.
We were siting there praying and feeling peace even in the middle of so much uncertainty.
We couldn't watch the news, got a bit of signal for our radio so little by little we began to understand that we were in the middle of a catastrophe and that whatever we had kept (in terms of provisions) would probably have to be stretched.
Some of our grains and dried goods. We have found that having a grain diet to balance all the starch we are consuming is good for us.At this point it's hard to find veggies and fruits because of how long we've been without power even in restaurants. We've resorted to buying baby food that contain veggies and that preserves well and super thankful for the small "colmaditos" that miraculously have provided some produce.
And behold my new bike.
Since up until yesterday we had a national curfew we had to do everything in a limited time "walking" everywhere to save fuel. Thanks to our family and some friends we were able to get bikes to go everywhere and save the fuel to visit our local church (that will take most of our fuel).
Since up until yesterday we had a national curfew we had to do everything in a limited time "walking" everywhere to save fuel. Thanks to our family and some friends we were able to get bikes to go everywhere and save the fuel to visit our local church (that will take most of our fuel).
On our walk yesterday. Happy to find some produce not too ripe so it can last us for a couple of days.
Since we didn't have water for the first 4 days we made our way to our friend's house for a shower. Never in my life had I appreciated a jet of water falling over my hair. Together we talked, joked, prayed, ate potlocks of whatever everyone brought, played board games (lighted by loads of candles) and God inspired a new song.
While we were staying over at our friend's we visited different neighbors and shared the new song God inspired. Many elderly have suffered during this time and this lady was so blessed to hear this worship set. She was sad she couldn't watch her usual church service on TV so her granddaughter made it possible to visit her and worship with her in her living room.
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Gracias por el amor que sientes por Puerto Rico.