Second stories

Along the streets of Puerto Bacquerizo Moreno concrete pillars rise up from the first story of building after building, their rusting rebar pointing toward the sky. Some look relatively new, as if the construction crews had just broken for lunch. Others seemed years old, with the concrete and lumber stacked nearby weathering.

One visiting instructor at the university told me that there was a tax advantage to a building being “under construction”, prompting people to avoid completing their homes. But the lawyer I was staying with dismissed the idea with a toss of his hand. “It’s because people can’t afford to finish them. They borrow money and build as much as they can and then wait until they can save more money.”

Some have staircases that rise to their unfinished second floor. Many people string their laundry between the pillars to dry. One family put its two dogs on the second floor at night to keep them from running through the neighborhood.

At first, I looked at the pillars as a sign of the poverty on the island, but as time went by I started to see them more as monuments of optimism.