Last week the project directors met in Utuado for a meeting.

MDS has three worksites on the island. (Actually, there are more than three, but only Aibonito, Utuado, and Ponce are currently taking volunteers from the States.) Our whole family visited Aibonito a couple weeks back, and my husband went to Utuado with some co-workers one day, but last week was my first trip to Utuado.)

Remember what I said about Puerto Rico being an inverted valley, flat around the edges and then getting all bunchy and steep in the middle? Well, going inland is like traveling to a different world. The topography is utterly fascinating: hairpin turns and blind corners and impossibly narrow roads that plunge nearly straight down (or at least that’s what it feels like it)

Everywhere we went, there were houses situated in the most precarious of places: directly along the edge of the road or built into the side of a cliff with 30-foot posts propping up the side that hovers over the abyss.

The land reminds me of a Dr. Seuss book, jutting out at weird angles with houses sitting at the ends of a long narrow strip of land, drop-offs on both sides. Imagine the land is a dock and the water is air and there is a house at the end of the dock, and there you go. Basically, go out to water the flowers, take one wrong step, and drop fifty feet.

After our meeting in the town proper, we drove the twenty minutes up to the worksite: two new buildings (a house and a church), and a house repair, all three atop one of those long docks of land.

We checked out the work, observed the local make-shift plumbing system (we see this type of set-up all over the island), and ate a lunch of pork chops, rice, and fried plantains.

The kids ran around, playing with the cats and foraging for mangos and oranges.

And then back down the mountain we zipped (we passed a handwritten sign at the end of a lane: at the end of this road are people without power, help us), swerving around low hanging electrical wires and washed out bits of road, and honking our horn — an attempt to warn oncoming traffic — around the sharpest of turns.

The end.

This same time, years previous: taking flight, the business of belonging, this, too, shall pass, microwave flower press, freezing strawberries, strawberry shortcake.

Our respite week is fast approaching. The tentative plan is to ferry our van to Vieques, rent a cottage, and crash. Maybe there will be hiking in the rainforest and snorkeling and horseback riding and daytrips to Culebra and fantastic street food and nice dinners out and hammocks and icy sweet drinks with wedges of fruit perched on the rim … or maybe not.

Quite frankly, at this point we’re too tired to think straight, let alone plan a relaxing vacation for six, so there’s a fair chance we’ll end up never leaving the house at all, instead spending our precious few free days slumped in our chairs, staring at the wall.

This concerns me.

So, if you’ve ever vacationed in Puerto Rico and know of inexpensive, not-to-be-missed places/activities, let us know. And if you want to draw up a detailed itinerary, that’d be great, too. The less thinking we have to do, the better.

P.S. I thought about including other details in this post — like the fact that my husband suggested, in all seriousness, that we not go anywhere (ARE YOUR FREAKING SERIOUS WE ARE IN PUERTO RICO FOR CRYING OUT LOUD), or like how we never go on vacations in the States so I really don’t know the first thing about planning, and spending money on, an entire week of leisure, or like the time when we were in Guatemala and planned a glorious vacation to Belize but then ended up getting on the wrong bus and spending two dismal days on some god-forsaken peninsula where the water was full of raw sewage and stinging jellyfish (if vacation PTSD is a thing, then we for sure have it, which is probably, now that I think about it, why I’m suffering from Vacation Planning Paralysis), or like why we are so exhausted and how this job is more deeply draining and intensely demanding (as well as incredibly fulfilling, rewarding, and fun) than any job we have ever had simply because we can not ever leave it and thus the reason we really need a vacation — but then I was like, I can’t even, and so I didn’t, sorry.

This same time, years previous: spinach dip, the smartest thing I did, Greek cucumber and tomato salad, sourdough waffles, fresh tomatillo salsa.

This same time, years previous: the quotidian (6.12.17), reverberations, photo book, mud cake.