Traveling pregnant - Part II: Hacienda de Caguas

Although we did not have to file taxes in PR in 2008 for work, we did have to report taxes for the house where my husband lived in while in college, which was sold that year and was in his name. We went to pay everything out in Hacienda of Caguas one afternoon, right after arriving in the island. There were a lot of empty parking spaces, but they were for employees, so my husband had to drop me off and I had to walk about five minutes to the building. When I got there, I was happy to see there were very few people and an express lane for pregnant women and people with disabilities. The problem was that they did not accept payment with cards that had the Visa logo. So, I had to walk to another building where there was an ATM in the lobby. I asked the lady what the total amount I owed was and went to the ATM to get the money. The ATM charged me $4 for the transaction.

When I came back to Hacienda, the lady says, “Oh, wait, you have a penalty fee of sixty-something dollars.” So, yes, I had to walk back to the ATM, pay $4 more and walk back to Hacienda. This office is in the basement of a big building, so I did not have cell phone reception to call my husband and tell him what was going on. Upon returning with the money for the fee, the lady of the express lane had closed the lane. She was sitting there and saw me, but did not help me check out. That’s when my heart started pounding quickly. I spoke to the “guard” they have there and asked him about that big sign that said that by law, pregnant women had priority in line. He said that did not work after 3 p.m. I was fuming; I did not know the law was on a schedule…

When I grabbed a chair to sit in line, the guard came and moved me out of the way. There were two people in front of me and one employee, yet I spent 40 minutes in line! When it was finally my turn, a manager comes out. When I complained about waiting in line despite being very pregnant, he said, “They should have let you come up first.” Tell that to your awesome guard!! On my way out, I told the guard that for future cases he could actually advance pregnant women to the front of the line. His reaction? He started screaming at me!! I was so mad I was crying by the time I got to the car. Somehow, this whole process had taken me almost two hours, with only two people in front of me in line. To this day, when I think about this I feel my pulse accelerating. It was horrible!

Traveling pregnant - Part I: Car problems

This is the first of a series of postings where I recount the experiences I had while visiting in Puerto Rico when I was pregnant with my first child. You may be tempted to think I exaggerate or that I’m making these things up. Unfortunately, they are all true. It was one of those trips…

When we headed to PR that year, 2008, we were very excited for all the plans we had and things we were going to do. We may have avoided a lot of mayhem by renting a car, but it wasn’t in our budget. I was about 6 months pregnant. It all started when the pickup truck a family member was letting us borrow, did not have the “marbete.” That meant we could not drive it, until the vehicle passed inspection and we paid the fees for what is similar to the vehicle’s registration process here in the US. Well, turns out someone with an inspection facility (something like the emissions test), who was a friend of a friend, agreed to do the inspection of the car without actually seeing the pickup truck, which hadn’t been used in about a year (I was not happy about this idea).

When we got to the shop, mind you it was not in the same town we were staying at, the guy could not do the inspection because he was not authorized to inspect—with or without the car—diesel vehicles. But, he did know someone, in another town, who could help us out. Did I mention this was all on a Friday, near Christmas, when most people are ready to start celebrating and leave work early? No? Well, keep that in mind for later…

We did find the guy, but he was busy until later in the afternoon, which was ok, because we had just discovered that the vehicle was still in my husband’s name (it was his pickup when we lived there). We had made arrangements the previous year to change this, but it never got done…

That meant we had to find an attorney that would be able to sign an affidavit (the title of the vehicle got lost and we needed a new one), so we could transfer the vehicle to its new owner before we got the marbete. We went to another town and found possibly the last attorney at work, who was literally sleeping in his office with the flu. His secretary typed the whole document with one finger and no hurry whatsoever. I remember because I was desperately needing to go to the bathroom (pregnancy will do that to you) and I could not use theirs because the sleeping attorney was taking a nap and the bathroom was in his chambers.

Finally, at about 4pm, we had all the paper work necessary and were able to get the inspection, title, and make the change of ownership before they closed the office that day. We drove back and forth between four towns to get this done and never even saw the pickup! In the end, they loaned us another car. So, at almost 6 or 7 pm, we were getting ready to head to Mayaguez, where my family had been waiting for us all day. Turns out the car we got, had balled tires!! At that time there was nothing we could do, so we decided to drive slowly and carefully. Traffic helped with the “slowly” part. Twenty minutes into the two-hour drive, we ran into stopped traffic: a car had burned up along the side of the road. Yup, and guess what? We weren’t going anywhere fast and I had to go to the bathroom again. We made it to Mayaguez at about 10 p.m. We were supposed to have been there at about lunch time. And I have spared all the minor details that made the day even more exasperating, like long lines in Hacienda and asking for directions at a gas station and getting lost, traffic everywhere and finding a parking space in town and then walking several blocks to get to the office...

All of this was after I had already had the worst ever government-office experience the day before. That is the story of the next post…

Just humans

By now, you will have probably heard me say the following phrase many times: We are just humans. I want you to understand what I mean when I say this and why I remind it to myself so often. As you grow up, you will come across many, many, many situations that require you to ask for someone else’s assistance, favor, partnership, etc. The quicker you learn to visualize people as “just humans,” the easier it will be to approach others to network and make friends.

The press, mainly the entertainment world, and the way they talk about people sometimes make us forget this. Wealth, possessions, even fashion preferences can sometimes intimidate us from being able to talk to other people with courage, as if they were something “special” because of those things. Aren’t we all just people trying to do the best we can with our lives?

Sometimes we take others and ourselves too seriously. In the end, we all leave the world empty-handed. When you need to make an important phone call, have an interview, an opportunity that requires you to win the favor of someone else, be brave! Do not let appearances, titles and reputations scare you from trying. Even the president is just human. We all need to eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom. We all have parents; we all seek love and approval. We are all just a speck in a speck in this vast universe. Remember that God is with you, so don’t be afraid, be bold, but be humble, and never feel less than others. You can do it, we are all just humans.