Free When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago Page A

white eggs, not at all like the small round ones our hens gave us. There was a tall glass of milk, but no coffee. There were wedges of yellow cheese, but no balls of cheese like the white queso del país wrapped in banana leaves sold in bakeries all over Puerto Rico. There were bananas but no plantains, potatoes but no batatas, cereal flakes but no oatmeal, bacon but no sausages.
    “But, señor,” said Doña Lola from the back of the room,
    “none of the fruits or vegetables on your chart grow in Puerto Rico.”
    “Then you must substitute our recommendations with your native foods.”
    “Is an apple the same as a mango?” asked Cirila, whose yard was shaded by mango trees.
    “ Sí ,” said the expert, “a mango can be substituted for an apple.”
    “What about breadfruit?”
    “I’m not sure ...” The Americano looked at an expert from San Juan who stood up, pulled the front of his guayabera down over his ample stomach, and spoke in a voice as deep and resonant as a radio announcer’s.
    “Breadfruit,” he said, “would be equivalent to potatoes.”
    “Even the ones with seeds?” asked Doña Lola, who roasted them on the coals of her fogón.
    “Well, I believe so,” he said, “but it is best not to make substitutions for the recommended foods. That would throw the whole thing off.”
    He sat down and stared at the ceiling, his hands crossed under his belly as if he had to hold it up. The mothers asked each other where they could get carrots and broccoli, iceberg lettuce, apples, peaches, or pears.
    “At the conclusion of the meeting,” the Americano said, “you will all receive a sack full of groceries with samples from the major food groups.” He flipped the chart closed and moved his chair near the window, amid the hum of women asking one another what he’d just said.
    The next expert uncovered another easel on which there was a picture of a big black bug. A child screamed, and a woman got the hiccups.
    “This,” the expert said scratching the top of his head, “is the magnified image of a head louse.”
    Following him, another Americano who spoke good Spanish discussed intestinal parasites. He told all the mothers to boil their water several times and to wash their hands frequently.
    “Children love to put their hands in their mouths,” he said, making it sound like fun, “but each time they do, they run the risk of infection.” He flipped the chart to show an enlargement of a dirty hand, the tips of the fingernails encrusted with dirt.
    “Ugh! That’s disgusting!” whispered Mami to the woman next to her. I curled my fingers inside my palms.
    “When children play outside,” the expert continued, “their hands pick up dirt, and with it, hundreds of microscopic parasites that enter their bodies through their mouths to live and thrive in their intestinal tract.”
    He flipped the chart again. A long flat snake curled from the corner at the top of the chart to the opposite corner at the bottom. Mami shivered and rubbed her arms to keep the goose bumps down.
    “This,” the Americano said, “is a tapeworm, and it is not uncommon in this part of the world.”
    Mami had joked many times that the reason I was so skinny was that I had a solitaria, a tapeworm, in my belly. But I don’t think she ever knew what a tapeworm looked like, nor did I. I imagined something like the earthworms that crawled out of the ground when it rained, but never anything so ugly as the snake on the chart, its flat body like a deck of cards strung together.
    “Tapeworms,” the expert continued, “can reach lengths of nine feet.” I rubbed my belly, trying to imagine how long nine feet was and whether I had that much room in me. Just thinking about it made my insides itchy.
    When they finished their speeches, the experts had all the mothers line up and come to the side of the room, where each was given samples according to the number of people in their household. Mami got two sacks of groceries, so Delsa had