Monday, July 02, 2007

things are a shakin´!

geez louise....today i woke up fairly early, thinking it would be a normal day...well, aside from the fact that i was up at 5:00 a.m. and washing clothes in order to take advantage of the morning sun before the rain rolled in at 1:00 p.m. (it never did). when that was finally done, i decided to lay back down for a bit before getting over to the school. well, i fell asleep (getting up at 5:00 a.m. just ain´t right....) and i probably would have stayed asleep for another good hour if i wouldn´t have been awakened by a temblor. not too bad, just a little shaking of the ground. nothing like we had a couple weeks ago....the effects of an earthquake in guatemala that left the water in my pila making waves and the electrical lines on the street dancing up and down. anyway, i got up and like 10 minutes later there was another one. then another. then another. seriously, like 5 within the span of an hour.

by the time i made it to the school, the teachers had sent all the kids home and they were all freaking out and upset about the fact that we´d had a morning filled with temblores. i didn´t grow up in an environment with earthquakes, so they´re a new thing to me, but i´m getting used to the movements and all that. but i don´t freak out when they happen like salvadorans do. that´s because i´ve never lived through a devastating earthquake before like they all have. every time we have the smallest of temblores, salvadorans hold their hands to their chests and get this serious, pensive, frightened look on their faces. i´ll admit, my heart starts racing and my stomach kind of drops, but i don´t feel that sense of doom like they all seem to.

so i putzed around the school for a while and then went up to niña domy´s house to eat lunch and we´re sitting there talking about whatever and all the sudden a really strong one hit. this one made me super nervous and we just sat there at the table and i´m like ¨dios mio, niña domy!¨ and her pots and pans from the wall were falling down and it seemed last forever! that was by far the strongest temblor i´ve felt since living here. you know how when you get pulled over by the cops, you get that super nervous sick to your stomach feeling....well, at least i get that feeling. well, feeling that temblor was like 10 times as bad as that. 10 times as bad as that feeling of standing on the starting block back when i was a swimmer in high school. ugh. totally worse.

the bad part is this....they haven´t stopped. they haven´t been as strong as that one at lunchtime, but they´ve continued and everyone´s talking about it....like why have there been so many. they are worried because with the rainy season and all, the earth below all our feet is loose and the earth´s movement makes it easier for landslides to occur. double ugh. so we´ll see i suppose. i´m from the land of tornadoes. not earthquakes or hurricanes. so this is all a little weird for me i guess. but you know, as i was leaving san jorge this afternoon, everyone was just going about their business like there wasn´t a threat of a natural disaster every single minute of their lives. the pan lady was still walking the streets shouting ¨pan!¨ little kids were playing on the fútbol cancha. niña domy was still selling churros and salva cola in her tienda. life goes on.

that´s about all for now! happy fourth of july! have fun gettin´ your barbeque on!!!!