Photo taken by RICARDO ARDUENGO/AFP/Getty Images
PUERTORICO-WEATHER-HURRICANE-MARIA
A group of people walk over debris on the Vivi River to get access to the Rio Abajo community in Utuado, on October 17, 2017. The improvised pulley system is the only way to obtain supplies for the community since the passage of Hurricane Maria caused the river to wash away the only bridge that gives access to the neighborhood.
Our conversation usually starts like this...and the strange secret is...we aren't chatting on the phone. We're not sending emails. I'm usually standing on a SIM in virtual reality world, Second Life...in a glass-walled room above Arteo. It's a graphical MUD on a MUD server...a multiuser domain...a MMORPG. We are connected by satellite. As we talk, I stand before a screen which blasts me with images of mankind travelling through the solar system and suffering cataclysmic devastation after a war... before suffering at the hands of aliens. Occasionally, a spacecraft glides on to a nearby dock and waits for someone to board before lifting off and gliding away. Sometimes I sit on a virtual chair with words and colour running past my feet as we talk. Other times, we stand on a small beach. For face-to-face moments, one of us asks to be teleported to where the other is standing. Hurricane Maria registered as an earthquake on a seismograph. In Puerto Rico, the phones are down. Power is down. I am in Western Australia. For Sabados, who completed his doctorate in San Diago, virtual reality is a reality...a reality in the world of communication.
"Hi, how are you?" he says.
"Good. Que tal?" I ask.
"Bien gracias". he answers, "Vas mejorando en espanol".
"How is your garden?" I ask politely.
"More clear now. I will have to repaint and fix and plant," he says calmly.
"What can you buy in the shops close to you?" I ask.
"Good. I can buy rice, bread, pasta, tomatoes, bananas".
I've tried to email one of the fruit plantations to ask if their wind power system was damaged in the hurricane but their email service doesn't work.
I've tried to email one of the fruit plantations to ask if their wind power system was damaged in the hurricane but their email service doesn't work.
"Great, " I respond, relieved.
"Did you ever get to see what was inside the ration packs?"I ask. He's too calm, I think.
"Enter the basics-rice, milk, sugar, pasta, coffee, cereals"
"Do you think they've got to all the towns?"I ask, concerned.
"Yes, at least that's what they're trying to do".
"What sort of things have you been doing lately?" I ask the shark researcher,"What is the coast like?"
He shows me some photos online of the collapsing coastal roads.
"I've been working all night. We've been helping the farmers," he responds.
"Are the curfews still in place?" I ask him.
"As a volunteer, I do not have a curfew."
"What sort of things have you been doing lately?" I ask the shark researcher,"What is the coast like?"
He shows me some photos online of the collapsing coastal roads.
"I've been working all night. We've been helping the farmers," he responds.
"Are the curfews still in place?" I ask him.
"As a volunteer, I do not have a curfew."
Sabados shows me some photos on Yahoo of the primates on Monkey Island. I looked at a beach full of monkeys. They sat with their backs to the sea.
"They survived!" I state.
"Yes"
Western Australia.
