Life Update: Hurricanes and Other Major Changes

Happy New Year, guys and welcome back to my blog! Quite a lot has changed since the summer and I'm excited to bring more content to you all. While the purpose of this blog is to document my natural hair journey, you know that there are other topics that I share as well. To be honest, I have been suffering from what I refer to as "chronic" Writer's Block since I've finished high school. I've just been lost on how I want to present my content and it really became a challenge. I used to write fictional stories as a hobby, and while I still write drafts to this day, I haven't found the right way to improve them even for amateur publishing. Ideas are always swirling in my mind and there's so much possibilities, but for now I'll focus on what I need to do to improve Hair, Health & Heart. 

Now, as for my hair, it has obviously grown since I last posted, but that wasn't the only major, major change that has happened. As you guys know, I've been living in St. Thomas (the US Virgin Islands) for almost six years. August is when hurricane season begins and, well... The images below speak for themselves.

Our small islands and the rest of the Caribbean was hit by not one, but two Category 5 hurricanes in September. While I had experienced milder hurricanes as a child, nothing prepared me or anyone else for Hurricanes Irma and Maria, or "IrMaria", as people at home call them. These were not my first monster hurricanes, however I don't count that as my experience, as I was only a sleeping baby when Hurricane Marilyn threatened to blow in the walls my relatives literally held up in 1995.

We did all we could to prepare in the days leading up to the event, while Irma was pounding on islands like St. Maarten and Barbuda. As the storm grew stronger and got closer to us, we realized that our lives were seriously at risk. Personally, I did not feel much, to be honest. Although I deal with anxiety on a daily basis, I remember not feeling scared at all. I think I'd already accepted what was meant to be and just focused on helping prepare the house and securing everything. However, my sister and I did decide to pack evacuation bags, "just in case".

On Wednesday September 6, the winds began to pick up, and the power was shut off in advance. Luckily, my sister and I filled two new large trash bins with water in case we needed to bathe or brush our teeth. With flashlights, fully charged devices and important documents secured, we locked the hurricane shutters around our windows and the glass door, sat in the dark and waited. Sometime after 12:00 as I set up my safe spot for the day, I heard my aunts and grandmother rushing to the kitchen to look out the window. The storm had barely started yet the first winds were strong enough to knock down the mango tree that stood above our backyard. 

Luckily only the branches, and not the trunk itself, fell on our roof. Interestingly, it gave me some relief because the fallen tree had provided somewhat more coverage to the back of the house, where me and my sister's bedroom was located. After 2:00 pm was when we felt the true force of Hurricane Irma. The house groaned, water leaked under the doors and our ears popped from the pressure. I remained in the dining room away from the windows and the GLASS door. I did not care that there was a shutter preventing it from blowing in. I was convinced that it would happen. However, my usual anxiety did not kick in all the way. I just watched some downloaded shows and stayed alert. Perhaps I was in survival mode. I wasn't too sure. 

The winds kept the same strength until I began to get unbearably sleepy around 4:00. Because I wasn't willing to sleep in my bedroom surrounded by windows, I took a toy basketball pump and one of the air mattresses my niece and nephews used whenever they slept over, and spent the next two and a half hours inflating it by hand. By the time I finished, the winds remained unwavering but I was aching for sleep. I remember dozing off in the hard dining room chair until the strong winds started to die down sometime after 6:00. That was when I felt secure enough to carry the little mattress to my bedroom, place it on the floor away from the windows, and slept.

The sound of my neighbors calling out and branches being chopped was the first thing I heard when I woke up around 6:00 in the morning. I went straight to the porch to find my sister, aunts and grandmother already surveying the destruction around us. There were pieces of leaves splattered across the hurricane shutters and the floor of the porch. 

My first glimpse of the destruction was when I looked to my left I saw the telephone pole leaning precariously against the power lines of another pole. 

Below on the street, the neighbor who lived across from us pulled a large branch out of the street before chopping it with his cutlass. The neighbor two houses left of our house had lost his roof. So did a neighbor's house on the street below. Interestingly, all of the cars on our street were unscathed, all windshields and mirrors intact. 

What really stood out to me was how bare the trees were after the leaves were ripped away, almost as if it was winter. I saw many houses that I had never seen before, because they were once covered by lush greens and trees. The mountains were a mixture of brown and green.

We even saw a little bit of the ocean from where we stood on the porch, which had been transformed into the most unique shade of light blue. It was the same gorgeous shade of blue that appeared after every hurricane. I began to take pictures of the aftermath, eager to share with my relatives what we had just survived, and to find out if they had survived as well. However, cell service was knocked out, so I couldn't even contact my other relatives on the island or my mother and brother who lived in Massachusetts. The first wave of relief came when my two sisters arrived after walking down the hill from their mother's house. We hugged and shared pictures of the damage from each other's point of view. I asked about my young niece and nephews, concerned as to how they coped during the storm. Even in a category 5 hurricane, those kids did not care what was going on as long as they were able to play on their tablet (until its battery died). I was so glad that they were okay. 

For the rest of the day we picked up the pieces and checked to see what was working and what wasn't. Thankfully, because we had a gas stove, we were able to use the stove top and have hot food. Our running water returned the day after, and I was thankful that I could at least flush the toilet and take a proper shower. But I was still not at ease because none of us could contact loved ones on the mainland to let them know that we were okay. I just knew that my Facebook feed was blowing up with concerned statuses of our relatives desperate to hear from each other. It was about two days before we were able to send and receive short messages. The service, albeit horrible, came in and out just enough so that we were able to catch a glimpse of the outside world.

Although I knew what to expect during the storm, nothing could prepare us for the struggle the aftermath brought. Our new normal became waiting hours in lines under the hot sun to get ice, which usually ran out by the time it was our turn. Driving from ATM to ATM in search of cash only to find out that they were empty. Standing in more lines and taking numbers just to go into the grocery store, because a certain amount of people were allowed in at a time. Eating dozens of cans of soup, crackers, skittles; taking ice cold showers; charging our devices on whatever working outlet we could get our hands on, and changing the batteries in our flashlights every other day became our new routine. Many people left on the mercy ships that were en route to the mainland, but I personally was content with staying home, no matter what challenges each day brought. 

And just when we thought that we could start rebuilding our island, the broadcast on our battery powered radio reported that another potentially dangerous storm named Maria, was building in strength quite similarly to Hurricane Irma. I literally felt the desperation in the air, as if everyone was saying, "Haven't we suffered enough?" We were only a month into hurricane season, and had two and a half months to go until it was over. In the days following the broadcast, reports of a Hurricane José were announced and we really began to feel defeated. But like we did before, we accepted what was going to be and prepared for the worst, again. 

Hurricane Maria felt the same as Irma, however the winds seemingly went on longer, perhaps because the full force of the storm hit after 6:00 in the evening. There was more water with that storm, as we discovered during the night. We spent at least two hours frantically mopping by the front door and the kitchen door, and placing down old towels to slow down the water that quickly crept in. Then, I re-inflated that little mattress until 3:00 in the morning and slept for a long time. The storms claimed the lives of four people, and caused many more injuries. As we made adjustments to our routine post-Maria, I felt envy for those who had generators, and my stomach ached for real food. While I appreciated the care packages that my aunts received from their jobs, or the bucket of supplies the Red Cross gave to us on the street, life began to feel very difficult. The heat, the mosquitoes, and having to sit in the dark every night began to take its toll. 

By early November, my concerns began to revolve around preparing for my next semester in UMass Amherst's online program. I knew that I wanted to begin registering for the spring semester, but how could I do that without power or internet? That was when I came to the most difficult conclusion. As much as I wanted to remain in the warmth and comfort of my home island, I needed to decide what was best for my future and prevent myself from putting off my goals for the sake of keeping familiarity. For weeks I weighed the pros and cons of staying in St. Thomas or returning to Massachusetts. Ultimately, I knew that it made more sense to return to the mainland.

At the same time, things began to get a little easier. My aunt received a free Wi-Fi hotspot that she was told we could keep until our internet returned. We also relied on unlimited data to keep up with current events or entertainment whenever the service was good. I was able to start working again and carried me or my family's devices to charge them. Then, we hosted a couple from my family's church who helped in the relief efforts, and they brought a generator which we were able to use for a few hours each day for about a month. One day the wife gave us a solar lamp that we kept outside all day, and lasted throughout the night. The bug repellent that was so scarce after the storms became readily available, offering temporary relief from the ravenous mosquitoes. People began to get their power restored and the weather slowly began to cool down. Every day felt a little better.

Still, I had not planned to stay on St. Thomas forever. When I finally decided that I was going to return to Massachusetts, it turned out that many around me decided to leave it all behind as well. At the end of October, I said a tearful farewell to my niece, nephews and sister as they departed to start a new life in Missouri. My younger brother left for Kansas. A few old friends, former co-workers, people from my family's church, or random people who I happened to overhear on the street, decided that they had no choice but to move on.

With only a few hundred dollars in my bank account and hopes of a fresh start, I left St. Thomas on December 7. I've been back in Massachusetts for almost a month and have been readjusting to the harsh winter climate (harsh is an understatement...😑). I have seen some relatives and friends and although I've lived on St.Thomas for the past 5 years, it almost doesn't feel like I completely left. I decided that it would be the perfect opportunity to start adding new content to my blog, which you will be seeing every week. With new goals and a new outlook, I am ready to see where Hair, Health & Heart takes me.

What I learned from my recent experiences is that it's easy to forget how simple things can be taken for granted. Things that you might realize toy appreciate until it's gone. 

I hope you guys have an amazing New Year and let's make the most of 2018! Thanks for reading! 😁