whole lot a shakin´ going on

As you may have heard, Peru got hit by a pretty wicked earthquake. I am fine and all the other volunteers are okay as well. Considering the magnitude of the situation, I couldn’t have been in a better situation for this to have happened. At the time, it really seemed like no big deal. Even now, I feel like it wasn’t that bad. But I was lucky, it could have been a lot worse.
My whole group was spending the entire day in Lima. During the morning and day, we were in the PC headquarters having interviews, workshops and shots. At night, we broke into out technical groups to have Pizza parties at our bosses house. We were an hour and half late, cause this is Peru and nothing ever happens on time. I was with my fellow 17 youth development volunteers and my trainers when the earthquake first started. We were sitting in our mini-bus, stopped in traffic. At first we thought there was something wrong with the combi(bus). I remember thinking that it felt really weird and I had never feel a car make this kind of motion. I overheard some one make a comment about what part of the engine he thought was doing it and no body was concerned. After about a minute, it got worse. Simultaneously I realized there was no way this a car could make this strong a shaking and I looked out the windows and saw everything else around me moving. Light posts, signs even building were all rocking pretty violently. It seems strange that I did notice people were out in the streets from the beginning but didn’t make the connection for a whole minute. Everyone seemed to realize at the same time that it was an earthquake, but most people were excited not scared. We were all in a safe location and we were all together so we didn’t have any reason to be scared. In fact, it was kind of fun. The earthquake lasted a full two minutes, it was crazy. We were all just looking around thinking when it was going to end, but it just kept going on and on.
We were in rich, residential area of Lima and there was no damage to any of the buildings around us. After everything stopped, the traffic started moving and we rolled up to our bosses house a few minutes later. This was the first time we realized it was a bigger deal than we all had thought. Kitty lives in a sweet embassy house, which is a three story apartment atop a building. When we got there, Kitty and Bianca were still outside the building. They were on the 5 floor when it hit and they said it was totally freaky. But we didn’t waist anytime, we all just marched up all those flights of stairs and dug into our pizza like nothing had happened. Kitty really worried, one thing that did effect our area was that all the phone lines went down. Peace Corps has to account for all it’s volunteers immediately after a natural disaster, so we were lucky that we were all together. Had we been in our communities with our host families like we would be every other night, they would have had to sent an official out to each and everyone of our houses to make sure we were alright. Non of us were to worried that our parents would be freaking out.
We figured non of our parents followed international events that closely. But after a 20 minutes it was all over not just the Spanish channels, but the English news networks too. This was the first time any of us realized how big it was. 7.9, really? Then people started getting nervous. Not only were people worried about an even bigger one that might hit or the tsunami warning, but people were now nervous about what our families were gonna think back home. The news was portraying a very scary picture, and I’m sure in fact it was pretty scary in some places. But we were all fine, hanging out together in a luxury earthquake proof embassy house, eating Pizza and brownies. We all wanted to let everyone we knew that we were okay, but all land lines, internet and cell phones were down. We eventually headed back to our perspective host families, who were as well worried sick about us. When we were leaving Kitty’s house I got my first sense of uneasy feeling. I realized how lucky I was to be with all my friends when it happened. It would have been so scary for t his to happen in my remote little community with a family that’s not really mine. I didn’t really want to go back to this family either. I felt more comfortable with my friends. Lying alone in my little bed on the first floor of a poorly built brick and cement house, was not my idea of feeling secure after such a big earthquake. I thought about how nice it would be, to stay in Kitty’s house. I felt transported from Peru when I was there, it was so nice. But then I thought about Kitty. She was more worried than any of us. And when we left, she would be all alone too. I thought even though Kitty has an incredibly sweet set up, that when she went to bed that night, she would feel more alone in her big bed in her 3 story luxury apartment, with no strange Peruvian family, than I would in my poor little house.
I didn’t feel all that lonely after all. My host family had been so worried about me in Lima, but I was so tired I did little more than tell them I was okay and excused myself to my room. I turned on my cell phone from home, which usually gets full signal, but it had no service. Every once in a while a bar of signal would pop up, but didn’t last long enough to make a phone call. I really wanted to talk to some one from home. I didn’t them to worry as much as I just wanted to talk to some I love.
The aftermath of the earthquake has been a big cultural learning experience. There was little to no damage where we live. The biggest thing that happened was that the phone lines went down. The next morning all us Americans woke up bright and early and went to the training center for a jam packed day of training. But all the Peruvian schools were closed not just yesterday, but today too! There is no reason for the schools to be closed. I come from such a fast pace, time is money society that I have a hard time understanding the logic behind it all, but that’s all part of the cultural experience.
So, all in all. I am fine. I was very touched by everyone’s concern over me. Really, I didn’t even think most people would have heard about anything going on in little ole Peru, but for everyone who called my parents or sent me an email. Thanks.