Hi HBosch. Help us understand your experiences in Puerto Rico

0POSTS

15 years ago

Hi HBosch. Your posts would be a lot more helpful if they were a little more specific.

I am sorry to read about your awful experiences in Puerto Rico. I will not attempt to deny your experiences even when they contradict a lot of what I've seen and heard. I am after all, a local who will never live the "anti-gringo" life that you lived. However, I would love it if you could elaborate on the hardships that you faced on the island. Your stories could help others that wanted to make the trip after ignoring your warnings about Puerto Rico being "The single worst place to live on Planet Earth."

Where on the island did you live? How long did you live there? Puerto Rico's population is diverse in culture, politics, education, and socioeconomic status. Was the anti gringo discrimination uniform across all groups or was it more prevalent in some people than others?

Are you fluent in Spanish? How were your efforts to learn the culture? How did you get involved with the locals? Did you make any expat acquaintances, and if you did, did they live the same hardships that you did?

What market were you overcharged at for being a "gringo"? Most stores will charge you the sticker price and most big stores will just scan the bar code of the products. Overcharging based on ethnicity is illegal and knowing what places do this would be really useful.

What do you mean with the description of "a mafia controlled island"? What was the nature of this mafia and what aspects of the island did they control?

The island is far from perfect, and many expats and locals complain about many things. However, your scathing remarks contradict the accounts of many other expats that have started blogs, etc., about their lives on the island. How do you explain this disparity of accounts? Are those people just being overly polite? If this is true, why do you think that they decided to stay?

I would like to thank you in advance for your response. I understand that you resent Puerto Ricans for the discrimination that you felt and I understand that it would take great courage to join me in dialogue because it would force you to remember your days in "purgatory".

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HBosch New member

6POSTS

15 years ago

Thank you for your email, and for the thread, although I must admit that retracing my experiences in Puerto Rico is both tiring and disagreeable. If you don't mine, instead of long narrative I'll just make a few points:

Bought a newly contructed house that i discovered had a damaged roof. After months of trying to have the seller fix the roof I was forced to go to court. End result: $50,000 in legal fees... roof still damaged... sold the house at a huge loss.

Went to buy a coco frio at a stand at the beach for $3.00, on my back to the car later i saw the vendor selling the same cocos frios to locals for $1.00

At a local computer store I was waiting in line to be served. Locals came in behind me and were served first. I complained and was laughed at by the clerks who had ignored me.

At a place I rented. A lesbian woman with an apparently severe hormone imbalance habit splashed me with water whenever i used the sidewalk in front of her apartment building.

Taxi drivers always tried to overcharge me by $5 to $10 over the posted rate. I started complaining and asking for names... but it was frustrating.

Neighbors gang up on you, cast insults, throw trash in your doorway... the most UN-neighborly country in the world, for sure.

The few times I needed to call the police I was informed to go to another agency who referred me to another agency who referred me to another agency who said it had been a police problem.

Mafia families... I could name 3 at least. I do not think its appropriate on this forum to spell out their names. But these families can do anything with impunity. I was in court once against one of them and my cased was lost before it even began, despite being the victim and having all of the appropriate evidence. If I got into specifics it would identify me so, I must leave it at that.

My bad experiences in Puerto Rico could cover volumes... You must believe me when I say that I am being quite sincere when I try to save others from what I suffered there. And then there are people like yourself, whom I have not had the pleasure of knowing. Of course there are good Puerto Ricans, and if you happen to be a Puerto Rican I am sure your life, withing the tribal social system could be nice. But for a foreigner, I really must insist that Puerto Rico is a land of great injustice and everlasting disappointment.

Best Regards

marisol34 New member

5POSTS

13 years ago

Hi I know you are probably a nice person and most likely not a racist because you decided to live in puerto rico.Now I think experiencing injustices in puerto rico would probably remind you of all the injustices minorities faces every day on the great usa.I am not saying all white people are prejudice against us,but most can get away with treating us just how you were treated,and the Justice sistem is always in the favor of white people.I do thank God every day I live in puerto rico where I don't experience racism,Now that you experienced it here you could feel compassion towards minorities in the usa and maybe you will try to help that would stop over there