When mommy first said she was thinking about moving to Puerto Rico. I was so excited. I did not know exactly where Puerto Rico was, but I was excited anyway. My mom told me that it was a beautiful Caribbean Island, and it was near Buff Bay, Jamaica. This is where my daddy was born. I could not wait to see it. Mommy said, we would be there for at least 2 years, then we would decide if we wanted to live there forever. This is a picture of me at Newark Liberty Airport, just before our trip to Puerto Rico. I was sleepy, because it was real early in the morning, but I was happy that we were heading to Puerto Rico.

There was nothing wrong with living in New Jersey. I got to see my daddy once or twice a month. I got to see my Nana almost every day. I had lots of cousins, and friends. New Jersey was full of beautiful people, and they all looked different.

No one ever asked me about my hair, because we all wore our hair the way that we wanted to. Some people had braids, some had afros, some had weaves, some wore Caesars and some just had naturally long curly hair. It was no big deal. Life was fun, and care-free when we lived in New Jersey. We only left because mommy did not want to work with radiation anymore. She wanted to go to school to be a nurse.

That made me even happier, because mommy had to leave home at 4 o’clock in the morning to go to her job. I hated getting up so early in the morning. Mommy said after nursing school we would have a better life. When we finally got to Puerto Rico, it was even more beautiful than I had imagined! There were tall beautiful trees everywhere. Some of them even had mangos hanging from them. People were selling fresh fruit by the traffic lights. The sun was shining, and mommy promised that we could go to the beach all the time. We only lived 5 minutes from the beach, and I loved it. We had an apartment in a part of San Juan called Santure. I made friends in the apartment building as soon as we got here. My best friend was Christina.

She spoke a little English, and she taught me a little Spanish. We had fun playing in the halls, singing, and dancing to the different music she introduced me to. We got here a month before mommy had to start school, so we had a lot of time to find me a school, and get to know our new home. That first night, I thanked mommy for moving us here. She was right, it was a beautiful as she said. I loved my new best friend, and I loved our new apartment. I could not wait to taste a mongo from one of those big pretty trees. I thanked God for our new life, and I was grateful that we did not have to get up at 4 o’clock in the morning anymore.

Kendra Nicole