I view Puerto Rico and the culture as a hardworking and self dependent commonwealth. Also Puerto Ricans are stereotyped as being mean/ crazy through the media and human eye. Not to make it seem like Puerto Ricans and their culture is perfect. But what I think is perfect is the food the food in PR was fingerlicking experience.I also enjoyed the traveling to different historic sities and taking picture with everyone.

A funny cross - cultural experience I had was when we all split up into smaller group to go and eat with. When going in to the Taco Maker Solomon, Ty, Mr. Turner, and I all had trouble ordering because noone in the store could speak English so through all the yelling, pointing and the half correctly spoken Spanish we finally. So now we approached every food spot like noone spoke English, when going into Popeye's Solomon and I were the first to order. So as we were ordering we starting speaking in broken Spanish and trying to let her know what we want to eat, she was looking at us funny but I didn't know what she was thinking when she finally just come right out and told us in ENGLISH "I speak English, what did yall want to order." Everyone starting laughing.

-Chad Wright

Closing Reflection

This semester that just closed was one of the most enchaining experiences that I had in my life. I had the liberty to go to Puerto Rico with my class on a trip to indulge in the Caribbean culture. The duration of our stay lasted for about 7-8 days (including weekends) and we were giving the opportunity to explore the culture, cuisine, and geo-climate to the fullest extent. Some of the experiences were a little more challenging for some that for others. I really appreciate bonding 11 other strangers and building a 'community' (as Alaina puts it) with these people.

Most treasured experience while we were down there was having the opportunity to go and visit the University of Pureto Rico. Their biology lab is impressive. Even more astonishing was the total annual cost of tuition. Their graduate courses about $40-$50; that's thousands cheaper than what we pay here in the states. So that institution really opened up as an option for me as far as graduate school. Plus, I love the atmosphere. I am a tropical person. I prefer warm, vibrant, areas than colder seasons. But the most profound thing of all was how everyone was so into the arts of their culture.

There was spanish music playing through out the streets of everywhere we went and the art work displayed the schools museum was breath taking. It felt as if people really put a lot of dedication into preserving their culture. The houses were so vibrant with colors; better than the old cement and stone houses of traditional America. If anyone were to ask/offer me to go back, I would take the opportunity in a heart beat!

A New Perspective of the Spanish People

Sometimes we can have a negative perspective about a group of people, my perspective about Spanish people was that they are lazy people, they come to United States just to get on the Welfare System, they think they are better than black people, their women have to many babies, they live twenty people in one two story house. These perspectives have change since my trip to Puerto Rico.


The Spanish people are a pride people, they are not a bunch of lazy people they work hard. The trip open my eyes to who they really are, they have a love for the family. The senior couples have this special kind of love for each other, they walk around holding hand. In San Juan, I saw a outdoor concert and the senior couples love to dance too together. They have beautiful home, they homes have a rich Spanish look to them

While we were in Puerto rico we had to do 12 hours of service learning. On monday we completed six of those twelve hours. it was very humid and we worked pretty much throughout the whole day. Around the camp their were many things that needed to be done. things such as painting, trimming of leaves and vines and plants. power washing and other things. The people at the camp seemed to greatly appreciate our help around the camp since they dont get it too often and trying to maintain it by themselves is very difficult.

The Puerto Rican food is so delicious. Although most of the food that we ate was not unfamilar to me because of my haitian backround, there was still some cuisine that i hadnt had before but tasted so good. Soloman and I do not eat pork so whenever they would serve us pork we would substitute if for chicken or something else. The culture is very interestiing and fascinating with so much history. I believe that each and everyone of us in the group came home seeing a whole new side of Puerto ricans and their culture.

Being in puerto rico was a wonderful expierence for me and is somewhere i would most definantly go visit again especially with the same group of people because throughout our time there we grew to know each other on a whole new level and overcame obsticles. Although it was very hard at first for some of us to get along, we had to because we were living with each other for 10 days. And as tecola said it was real world puerto rico.

My Wonderful Puerto Rico experience

I now look at Puerto Rico in a whole new way. I used to believe Puerto Rico was on big island with sand and rock, with Puerto Ricans living in small colorful houses. After visiting and touring Puerto Rico I now realize that it has stores, schools, cities, and streets very similar to the U.S. When I was in Puerto Rico I stayed at a cabin in the forest. Although it was a new experience for some of my fellow classmates to live in the woods, I experienced living in the woods in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Living in the woods brought back many memories from, the smell of the trees and the sound of the birds at night. I remember when I first gotten off the plane it came to reality that I was in Puerto Rico because almost every sign was in Spanish. Also the weather was very hot being as though I was just in the winter of Philadelphia. Every sight I seen I learned something new that I was unclear of or had no idea of.

One memorable moment that I won't forget is when Alaina let us have some free time to go get something to eat. I decided to go to McDonalds. Although we were told to stay together, I somehow found myself alone in McDonalds. I decided to order a sandwich, but noe on in McDonalds spoken any English. I tried as best as I could to describe what I wanted by using my hands to order my sandwich. After I thought they realized what I was talking about, they gave me the wrong kind of sanwich which didn't taste so good. Even though I had some difficulties communicating with some of the people in Puerto Rico, I still enjoyed every moment of it and I will visit again sometime in the future.

-Solomon