I got a question today from someone who is considering moving here. He asked, “How are the people in general?”
I have not met one Puerto Rican who hasn’t been nice to us. Even with our not knowing Spanish, they are very patient. We never feel judged or like outsiders. We are always treated like family.
We have had at least 3 strangers drop everything to help us with our car. More, if you count the night 7 people helped us get home from a city an hour away. Including, one couple, with a baby, who refused to leave until we were settled.
We’ve made friends left and right. Grocery store, gas station, at the beach, everyone is friendly and willing to give great advice.
The kids are great. They love our kids and are very inclusive. In fact, Dylan played with a 5 year old who speaks no English yesterday and loved it. He couldn’t stop talking about how fun it was. Most of the kids my friends have made are kids from our church. More than half of them speak English so communication is easy. Even if they don’t speak the same language, between pointing and the Spanish my kids do know, they get along just fine.
We’ve also met a lot of American’s who are living here and they have all been really sweet as well.
The only thing that we had to get used to was ISLAND TIME. In a lot of cases people run on what they call, “Island time”. It basically means, “we will start late” or “I’ll be late”. Whatever it is, it’ll start late . At first this was frustrating because I was used to my fast-paced lifestyle in the U.S. It was also frustrating because we were trying to get things done that were important to us, like, buying our car and finding a place to live. Now, we love Island time! I don’t mind at all that things are chill and that everything isn’t a big emergency. There are a lot of things in life that we think we have to have NOW but that just isn’t true. I’ve noticed that if a Puerto Rican is late, it’s because they are helping another person. They are incredibly generous with their time. People come first here. Not money, not the to-do list. I’m actually worried that when I get back to the States I won’t understand why everyone is rushing about, scheduling and worried about getting the list done. 🙂
We’ve been invited into homes and hearts!
So, as you can tell, we absolutely LOVE the people in Puerto Rico! They’ve definitely found a place in our hearts.
We are in the “we NEED our car back” and we “NEED these tests for school placements” mode right now — 3 weeks into our stay here. I am TRULY looking forward to relaxing a bit into island time, but at the moment it still feels very frustrating! 🙂
People from the US tend to have a very stereotypical view of PR, thinking the entire island is crime ridden and full of not so nice people. I have found the complete opposite. I agree w/ everything you said above. We became fast friends w/ all of our neighbors & they quickly became like family. Times we’ve been out & needed directions, not only have people explained, but insisted on us following them to where we needed to go. People really do help each other out for the sake of being neighborly, not for what they can get in return. The wonderful people are a big part of why we’ve decided to make the move there.
Isn’t it amazing! I had one mom call me scared to death because they were moving here and had read so many bad things about living here. I can’t say enough good things about the people we’ve met!