Word of the Week: Frajlai

Sorry I've been missing the last week or so. Anyways, I've skipped the last couple... issues Puerto Rico has had. By that, I mean natural disasters. Sort of. There was the earthquake, and then Hurricane Omar... yeah. Anyways, so that you have this word for the next one, I thought I'd get a word of the week in there.

There are a couple of different ways to say flashlight in Spanish, but Puerto Rico has its own--frajlai, from the American flashlight. Linguistically it's a fascinating word. "Sh" is replaced with "j", since it's the end of the syllable and ending it with "j" is a very Puerto Rican tendency. There's also no attempt to end the second syllable with the English consonant, a typical trait of words being transferred to Puerto Rican Spanish (look at bre, for example, as in "Dame un bre", give me a break literally). The most interesting thing though is the change from "l" to "r". Even though "flash", when brought into Spanish, kept the "l", for the Puertoricanization of a similar word it had to be changed. My friend gave me a very Puerto Rican explanation for this change: "It sounded too much like chino with the l" (an analysis of the millions of uses of the word chino to come later!). This represents a sort of schism with the other Spanishes, which could accept the "fl" sound, in favor of a sound more natural to Puerto Rican Spanish. This doesn't mean that Puerto Rican Spanish doesn't include words like "flaco" or others with "fl", but rather that it is able to affirm its own Spanish inside of a global and traditional Spanish. Like most things Puerto Rican, it is the acceptance of a contradiction that does not need to be solved; it just is because it is. It's brilliant.

Photos, Río Piedras: Urbanization meets Nature

I thought I'd share a couple of the photos from yesterday's adventures.


Fruit stand on the corner.


I know everyone hates the strange color choices on the island. Don't ask me why, but I love it. It's "trashy" and I love it.

"yo soy la fokin maravilla y si no te gusta brega k-bron" (plus some other stuff)

Dirty rag by flamboyán...

I love this picture. Who decided to put these two trailers together and leave them in that perfect spot, anyways?

A couple of observations

Being here, as opposed to relying on accounts from friends, is forcing me to take note of things that have changed since I was last here about a year ago. A few thoughts:

1. Elections are coming up. I mean, not that I didn't know that before; even from afar it was pretty obvious. But the intensity of these elections contrasts with the as-of-yet lackluster American elections--or rather, maybe they seem that way because I've been here a bit over a day and it's already rubbed off on me. Anyways, there are political ads (several of them pretty funny) on the television every couple of commercials, the signs are everywhere, and yelling names of candidates at random strangers is perfectly okay.
2. Puerto Rico is starting to catch onto the whole "green" trend. Every couple of news items includes something about it. But of course, the island still has a very far way to go and it'll be a long time before things really change.
3. This is a bit more personal but man did I miss the food! Coming to a home and getting fresh food with all the flavor I haven't had in forever has just been great. I'm really going to miss this.

In other news, Aníbal is being charged with 5 additional crimes, bringing him up from 20 to 25. I have nothing to say about this, it's that pathetic.

Word(s) of the Week: Cucubano and Cucullo, Plus Tony Croatto

Tonight I was outside, enjoying the breezy dusk we were having here. It's summertime, of course, and the cool nights nearly make up for the muggy days. Anyways, I called my friend over to look at the fireflies, which were everywhere. She was pretty impressed with how many there were... enough, I suppose, to call her mom and tell her about it.

"You know, we have these at home," she told me afterward. "I just forgot. They're called cucubanos... Tony Croatto has a song about them that Mom started singing for me. You should write about him."

First things first, cucubanos aren't exactly fireflies, but they are related. They're some kind of click beetle, supposedly. Technically Puerto Rico has its own real fireflies named cucullos. They're pretty similar though, both emitting a green light. Here's a video of cucullos, in case you wanted to see.

They're pretty easy to forget, too. Most live out in the country, since they can't find mates with all the light pollution.

So then who is Tony Croatto? Well... he is an Italian singer who, after having a more or less successful career in other parts of Latin America and Spain, eventually came to Puerto Rico to make country (jíbaro) music. What's most remarkable about him, besides that he was able to take the many rhythms and melodies of all parts of the island and refresh them, was that he truly adopted Puerto Rico and Puerto Rico truly adopted him. Even though he died in 2005, there is still a lot of love for him in the island.

If you want to know more, Wikipedia has a great entry on his life. Worth reading, definitely.

Oh, and here's the link to the song "Cucubano". Really nice.

Cockfighting is Still Legal in Puerto Rico

Cockfighting, surprisingly, is still legal in Puerto Rico, even though it's illegal in the United States (including Louisiana as of late). Interestingly enough, it's legal in Guam as well--maybe it's a U.S. territory thing?

It's pretty cruel that this tradition continues, but it's still very popular in Puerto Rico. In many neighborhoods you can hear roosters crowing at all hours of the day, and most (although not all) are for cockfighting. I've met a few people with roosters and the amount of pride they have in raising their birds is astounding.

Anyways, I have two videos that can tell you a lot more than I can, and if you want the nitty-gritty here's the Humane Society's page.

Wild Animals!

Two more thoughts about yesterday's post.

One is about the Puerto Rican parrot, that little green fellow you've probably never seen because there are only 30 to 40 left in the wild. Apparently they're not just being affected by the environmental factors, like human encroachment on El Yunque, their main home, but also hurricanes. Of course, that wouldn't be half the problem if the population were a better size, but in the meanwhile it's a bit of a race to figure out if anything can be done to protect them before hurricane season starts again in a couple months!

The other thing is saving satos (mutts). Ever since the dog massacre incident last year, a lot of press and attention has fortunately spurred various movements taking care of many of the strays, most sent to the U.S. for adoption. Anyways, here are two blogs talking about the effort.

I really applaud their efforts, since anyone that's been on the island has seen all the dogs roaming around, some with owners but many without. I hope they have lots of luck.

And now a short, cheerful story... in the neighborhood I'm usually in when I visit, apparently a family living down the street had a stray dog get its head stuck in their fence in front of their house. They ended up having to destroy it to get the dog out (and as far as I can remember they hadn't fixed it yet...), and by the end of the process, even though they had hated dogs before, they decided to adopt him! Things have just gotten better from there.

A Green Puerto Rico? Recycling and Environmental Care (or lack of!)

I know this is another El Nuevo Día inspired post, but this is one of the most optimistic things I've seen on there in a while. There's an article about new efforts to found a trash collecting, recycling, and re-forestation program in Carolina, called Carolina Bella ("Beautiful Carolina").

For a place known as a natural paradise, Puerto Rico has a ridiculously bad track record with the environment. I don't know if and where there is much information on this, but I can tell you from personal experience that it's a non-issue for most of the people living there. Unfortunately in many areas there is trash everywhere and recycling basically doesn't exist.

I have a friend who got a temporary job over the summer with the government in which she had to go from house to house surveying people about recycling. She told me, sounding more than a bit frustrated, that over the course of several days not a single person had expressed interest in recycling. Not only that, but some people actually started explaining why they opposed recycling and how they would much rather just throw everything away, even if the government provided bins for recycling and pickup every week. She then started to wonder why it was that people were so stubbornly against it, without coming up with an answer.

If I had to take a stab, I would say that a lot of Puerto Ricans are very comfortable in an exaggerated imitation of American lifestyle--SUV, cable television, and piles of garbage included. In their minds, any change, no matter how small, suggests a threat to all of this, which honestly many families have worked very hard to obtain. This doesn't mean that a change in this mentality is unreachable, just that it may be more difficult to achieve. I don't know what other reasoning would be behind this. Any guesses? I'd be interested in hearing some different opinions.

Anyways, good for Carolina, making change. While Carolina is one of the richest municipalities on the island, hopefully others will find the funds and ambition to follow and more emphasis can finally be placed on the land's most important resource.

Please, if you have any, share ideas for what could stimulate change in Puerto Rico's relation with the environment, since I know this is a hot topic for bloggers. Thoughts?

Word of the Week: Coquí!

Sorry I've been taking so long to write, life has kept me busy as usual. Moving on...

I was thinking about what to post and I realized there is something I really should have talked about by now: the coquí!

For those who have never been to the island, you're probably a bit confused. To those of you who have or are Puerto Rican, right now you are either sighing with nostalgia or thinking evil thoughts. Or both.

The coquí is a tiny brown frog from Puerto Rico. They are, like I said, tiny, usually about the size of a quarter or so, and they're quite easy to squish--it doesn't help that they're everywhere, too. Their name comes from the sound they make at night, coquí coquí, which is very loud and very high. If you live on the island either you get used to it (and miss it once it's gone) or you hate it.

They're a really popular figure on the island so they're put on every tourist thing you can imagine. If, after staying on the island, you've decided you like the sound and want to buy a souvenir with a coquí on it, for God's sake don't buy something with a green coquí on it. Coquís aren't green, yet stuff keeps getting made with green coquís on it. I don't understand.

Here's a great example. A friend got this from another friend (who, by the way, neither are smokers). On here is a bright green, cross-eyed coquí. Bleh! Actually, I think it's pretty funny (hence why I ended up with it).

Also, they have coquís in Hawaii because of an invasion on imported plants. Hawaiians hate them. Can't blame them.

... okay, I'm starting to sound really negative. I do love coquís, they're really cute and having the noise helps me fall asleep on the island. But I can definitely understand how they can be hated as well.

Here are some quite nice photos of a coquí. If you want to hear the sound, just youtube "coqui" and you should find plenty of videos of the little guys.

Personally, whenever I want to hear them, I have a little box that, when opened, plays the sound of the coquís. Really nice gift from some friends, I think. I also have a little coquí figure that's pretty cute.

Says "Canción de Puerto Rico" (the song of Puerto Rico).

Inside of the box, with an illustrated map of the island and the little coquís.

Green Puerto Rico

I'm real busy, but I did want to pass along this blog article about being green in Puerto Rico. It's also just a good general guide to visiting the island!

2 Articles: El Yunque and Fights in Schools

Sorry for the wait, I took a much needed thanksgiving vacation.

Here are two quick articles while I prepare a larger post.

This first one is about El Yunque, the rainforest park and popular tourist destination. I'm not going to pretend this is a well written article or that the pictures are outstanding, because they aren't. But it made me smile.

The second article is in Spanish about fighting in schools. I thought it was interesting how they're concerned more about people putting the videos up on youtube than about the actual fights, it seems. Oh, the first link they have up doesn't work, because that's how El Nuevo Día is. Here's the video. It seems pretty intense.

I'm not judging, since almost all high schools have fights. I just thought I'd share (and it's good Spanish practice, for those learning Spanish).

A few things you should notice about the video: they refer to the fight as motín, literally a mutiny. Also, they're outside. In high schools on the island, classes are "outdoors" (by that I don't mean that there isn't a building, but rather there are regular classrooms and covered walkways outside) and students (as far as I know) are allowed off of campus for lunch and might also hang around the front of the school before and after classes. And the final thing you should have picked up on: all the students are dressed the same. In public schools the students wear uniforms, unlike most of the U.S.