The Peace Corps is a sort of Howard Johnson’s on the main drag into maturity.
~ Paul Theroux
After all the negative comments and downright ridiculous outrage about Bad Bunny’s superb NFL halftime show at Super Bowl LX (2026), I thought it appropriate to share one of the most amazing experiences of my life – in Puerto Rico. Read on, please.
No one waited the gate in Ponce for three young American women dazed by a bumpy flight, catapulted into another world. No one was there to tell us what to do. No one to tell us where to go for the night. We pooled our money and flagged down a cab in front of the airport. The cab driver seemed to know that we were seeking the Peace Corps training center. Through narrow steep streets we drove, the driver leaving his lights off except at intersections, erroneously believing that keeping them on ran down the taxi’s battery. He left us, and our suitcases, in front of the training center and sped off with a short burst of his horn.
Housed in a dilapidated former convent, the Peace Corps training center bore a great resemblance to my vision of a Spanish-style house, small classrooms and offices with creaky wooden floors overlooking a courtyard, all surrounded by red adobe walls punctured with arches and trellises.
We pounded on the worn wooden doors, sure we’d have to sleep on the street. To our surprise, a little window in the door popped open.
“So sorry, I was just on my way to the airport,” a man said.
He opened the door, and we all three sighed with relief.
“I’m Raúl Cárdenas, and if you give me a minute, I’ll take you to your pensión.”
In the dark, the pensión didn’t look like much. It looked seedy, like a place on the wrong side of the tracks in some no-name Southern town.
Raúl knocked on the metal gate of the house, surrounded by a wall topped with shards of broken glass, glittering rainbows in the beams of the wrought-iron colonial-era street lamps lining the sidewalk.
Despite the late hour, the woman who answered the door was the lady of the house, a widow we later learned, down on her luck, who rented rooms for Peace Corps volunteers. She led us through a narrow hallway jammed with heavy wooden Spanish-style furniture, up a winding staircase to the top floor, and pushed open a creaky wooden door. I suspected that the room, small, overcrowded with three cots, might at one point have been a maid’s room.
At that moment, all I could think of was sleep. I don’t remember if I even changed my clothes.
The next morning, I woke to sounds of a parrot chattering outside the open window. He balanced himself on the branches of a red-flowering jacaranda tree. Everywhere I looked, crepe-papery bougainvillea cascaded over walls, purple, pink, white. The sounds of boats rang through the balmy air.
The adventure began with breakfast, a roll smothered with dulce de leche, thick black coffee, freshly squeezed orange juice, and hard-cooked eggs. But it was dinner the night of that first day that stayed with me: red beans slathered over a pile of white rice, with spicy fried chicken on the side.
Red Beans
Serves 4–6
2 cups dried small red beans, soaked
6 cups water
1 medium ripe tomato, cut into wedges
½ medium yellow onion, cut into wedges
½ green bell pepper, cut into thick slices
1 bay leaf
1 garlic clove, peeled
3 tablespoons lard or vegetable oil
4 tablespoons sofrito
Fine sea salt, to taste
Chopped cilantro for garnish
Put beans in a heavy pot and cover with water by 1½ inches. Add tomato, onion, green pepper, bay leaf, and garlic. Bring to a boil, lower heat, cover, cook until beans are tender, about an hour or so. Heat sofrito in lard in heavy skillet until bubbly, then scrape it into the beans. Simmer until thick, but still slightly soupy. Serve over white rice, garnished with chopped cilantro.
CYNTHIA D. BERTELSEN 