Growing up Puerto Rican was the most normal thing in the world. There are so many things that I took for granted. Piraguas for a quarter, Limbers de Coco for another. The smell of my grandmother's kitchen when the Sofrito hit the hot oil in the Caldero. Eating fresh Mangos off the trees. Kenepas that grew right outside in my grandmother's garden. Climbing trees to gather Carembolas that were both sweet as they were sour. We would chase my grandmother's chickens until she would spank us for agitating her prized fowl. We were wild, my grandparent's mountaintop land was an oasis for us and we never knew anywhere else in the world existed. When night fell the air all around us was full of the sounds of my native land. The Coqui would sing its sweet lullaby and lull me to sleep each night.
Now, twenty years later, all the way across the ocean that separates the states from the tiny island I called my home; I go to the local grocery store in search of some things I need to make dinner for my family. It saddens me that the foods I loved as a child are no longer available to me. My childhood has been reduced to one aisle, International Foods. Our Gandules, Habichuelas, Arroz, Sofrito (in a jar), Malta, Sazon, Adobo, are sitting on the same shelves as tacos, and Asian noodles. Mangos there were free to me everyday are two for three dollars. The platanos that we use to make tostones are already turning by the time they arrive to the market and if we don't cook them that very night they will go bad. Now don't get me wrong I love my life here in Alabama, I have a wonderful husband and great kids. Sometimes late at night when I toss and turn in bed unable to succumb to sleep, I can't help but long for the sweet song of the Coqui to lull me to sleep
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