🌀 Growing up among hurricanes 🌀
The Arawak would try appealing to Guabancex, goddess of the winds and transformation, so destruction would not strike their buildings and crops. This was prior to Christopher Columbus arrival and because of what followed this event which many like to see as a discovery, today the children of fugitives, slaves and pirates continue the tradition of asking deities for protection from natural disasters.
The names and even gender of the gods have changed since, but the practice of begging to powerful forces persists, more than 500 hundred years later.
I never learned to fear the winds and the rain, not even fire, because in the Caribbean we tend to build in preparation for storms like Irma. The only thing you should really fear when you live in a house made out of stone and built upon a stone is earthquakes, and while this area of the world is supposed to be very active seismically, I am yet to experience a considerable tremor having lived here for the better part of 26 years.
If I should be honest though, and this is in no way criticism to the United States, I'd rather wait out a storm in the Caribbean. I've already visited some of the buildings in America and I'm not impressed. Sure they look pretty on the outside, even the inside, but most of them couldn't even take a category 3 much less category 5 hurricane.
The last big storm I experienced was in September 1998, hurricane Georges. That was a strong one, I remember the streets afterward were filled with debris, imagine the street you live in full of trash and trees up to your waist line. Not a pretty scenery at all.
What was beautiful though, was seeing the response from the people. Just as the storm was over and we were able to make sure everyone was alright, people started cleaning. Everyone was out picking everything up, even the children. I remember feeling so proud to be part of that bunch of people who were united in their efforts to get everything back to normal.
We went without electricity for several weeks, it seemed like months but I was so young I think my perception of time was a bit slower. We went without water too, trucks would be sent to different areas and people would have to make lines to fill up some buckets and carry them home.
The response from the government was quite good in my opinion, pretty decent for a third world country. They gave stores supplies so that if you went to buy something or ordered something to be delivered, you'd get extra edibles in cans and the alike at no cost.
I was planning to go back to the US in a couple of days but my plans seem to be taken by weather, my last flight into the country was the worst I've ever been in, lots of turbulence. Like I even woke up in the middle of the flight because it was shaking, I didn't even know where I was. Imagine opening your eyes and seeing clouds but you don't know where you are, haha, it was pretty scary.
I never really learned to fear the winds or the rain, not even fire, but I have learned to respect them over time.
It's going to be a couple of weeks before I can get on a plane comfortably, and even then I think I will have to get some flight insurance for the first time in my life, but the way the weather is lately I think it would be worth it.
While I am here I was planning to visit some Bitcoin ATMs for my Spanish YouTube channel and Steemit account, but that's gonna have to wait, might end up doing some weather reporting instead.