isa-normaladvance-1903-00173

Description:	THE NOEMAL ADVANCE.173above that would have distorted the reflectedcharms of a noted, beauty into a veritable fright.When our baggage arrived, one of the trunks hadto be stacked on another and our steamer chair wasrelegated to the balcony. The natives who carriedour baggage from the coast to our room carried thetrunks on their heads. Our own heads ached fromsympathy until we had been there long enough torealize that what they carried on their heads constituted their only mental burdens. Shortly afterour arrival a fat, dirty, little chambermaid appeared. She brought two tin basins of water witha large goblet of water set in the middle of eachbasin. This constituted our supply of water fortwenty-four hours. Two clean towels, a cake ofsoap like a door knob, and a tallow candle completed the equipment of Our room. The next morning we had to learn how to ask for more cleantowels in Spanish.The dinner that evening was one long gastronomic and aesthetic horror. The waiter, errandboy, and general purchasing agent was a tancolored native about fifteen years of age. He wasclad in jeans trousers, a gingham shirt, and aleather belt, all about the age of the wearer and allstrangers to any cleaning process. Into his beltwas thrust a, machete with which he cut bread orfruit when occasion demanded. His lack ofcleanliness, coupled with his really infantile disregard of all the formalities of civilized life, wouldhave quite spoiled a most appetizing meal. Hebrought in soup in a soup plate set on top of fourother plates, which indicated that our dinnerwould consist of five courses. The soup was madewith lard as a substitute for meat and was flavoredwith garlic and highly seasoned with red pepper.The odor was enough. The waiter removed thesoup plates and brought us rice, red beans, andchicken cooked together and seasoned with garlic.The third course consisted of fried fish servedwhole. They were the little red sun fish which retain their pretty pink color even when fried. Afterthe fish he brought us a native fruit called theAvacado. It is similar in shape and color to agreatly overgrown green pear and is comparable intaste to nothing, but it is considered very nutritious. Fried bananas and guava jelly, served witha small cup of black coffee, completed this never-to-be-forgotten dinner.After dinner wc repaired to the parlor, whichwas merely the front part of the dining room. Thewaiter brushed the crumbs from the table with awhisk broom and close on his departing heels camethe roaches, singly and in parties, to eat thecrumbs. The small roaches were about the size ofa flattened June bug and the fully grown oneswere about three sizes larger than the broad, mudcolored beetles that we find around our electriclights on summer evenings.Later the landlady appeared with her two smalldaughters. The children were quite sumptuouslyarrayed for average Porto Eican children, eachbeing clad in a short dimity slip. The hands ofone child were covered with sores, and we learnedafterwards that blood diseases are the heritage ofan appallingly large per cent, of Porto Eican children.We retired early. The pillows were filledwith the fiber of a native plant that smells like agoat. Those lurid canopies infested our dreams,and long before midnight Morpheus was completely routed by a noiseless host clad in brown,little in all save appetite and persistence.In Aguadilla we made our first observation ofthe native methoel of doing laundry work. Thelaundress, who lived in the court yard below us, wasso black she shone, and her motions were so slowthat it hardly seems correct to call them motions.The wooclen tub was about eighteen inches indiameter and about twelve inches deep. The washboard consisted of an unplanecl board and a pieceof cocoanut shell. Each garment was soused upand clown a few times in the soapy water then laidon the board and rubbed with the cocoanut shell.The garment was then laid out on the stones inthe court yard to bleach in the sun. With a givenlot of clothes this process was repeated on threeconsecutive days, then they were starched andironed. Only the first morning hours were devotedto this work for the family rested all afternoon.As a natural result our laundry work went out onSaturday morning and no persuasion, moral,
Source:	http://indstate.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/isuarchive/id/33987
Collection:	Indiana State University Archives

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