Earthquake

I was sitting at the kitchen table a few Wednesdays ago, eating dinner with Catherine and Teresa, when the floor started to shake. Catherine and I looked at each other; the shaking got stronger. It felt like being on a ride at an amusement park where you have to walk across a floor that vibrates and wobbles under you. We got up, uncertain of what to do--neither of us had ever been in an earthquake before, but we recognized what it was, and I went and stood in the kitchen doorway because I had a vague recollection that that's what people should do in earthquakes. "Teresa, what do we do?" asked Catherine. Teresa, preoccupied by the shaking that showed no sign of stopping, jumped up and scooted straight out the front door without answering, and stood in the open space across the road. Iris had come out of her room when the tremor didn't stop after a few seconds, and the three of us went outside together, leaving the door wide open behind us.

For another minute the ground didn't stop moving. Everything had stopped: dogs were barking, people were leaving their houses with the doors swinging open. It was night and the yellow street lights of Villa El Salvador were marching away over the hills in long lines. I saw the clouds lit up by lightning twice; later I found out that lightning is almost never seen in Lima, and people were terrified by it. A man drove by in a taxi and stuck his head out to ask, "Sister, what's going on? Is there an earthquake?"--it seems that the suspension in cars can prevent people from feeling tremors. Iris was pacing around looking worried. "This is the worst one we've ever had," she said. Catherine and I just nodded--for all we knew, this was normal for Peru.

There was no damage to our house except a few pictures that fell off the walls. Most of the houses in the area were fine too, as was the school, although the bookshelves in the English classroom had toppled over and dumped a huge mound of textbooks onto the floor. The aftershocks recurred during the next few days, including once when I was teaching in the auditorium. We hurried outside and joined the rest of the school on the blacktop, but by the time we got there it was over.

It was an odd experience, but it didn't seem too dangerous at the time. I couldn't really understand why all the Peruvians were so panicky. I gathered that slight tremors are indeed normal around here and usually pass in a few seconds, leaving little to no damage; and yet in the days that followed, some people told me they had thought it was the end of the world, others that they grabbed their children and started praying for their lives, others that they were sleeping fully dressed with keys in hand so they could run outside during the night... I didn't get why everyone was freaking out so much until the reports started coming in of the terrible damage in Pisco and Ica, cities about 100 miles south of Lima near the epicenter of the quake.

Many of the houses there, especially in the rural areas, are made of mud bricks, and they just crumbled. A church in Pisco collapsed on a funeral Mass, killing hundreds of people who were inside. One of our friends from Chaclacayo, Ever, went down to Pisco the day after the earthquake with a group from his work, since he does social work for the government and knows something about first aid. He said it was utter chaos. People were fighting over water, there were bodies all around the main square, there was no food to be had and Ever had to pay 5 soles for a tiny can of tuna and crackers, and tuna and crackers was what he ate for three days while he was working there. A week later, drinking tea in our calm, undamaged house, he told us the story in a quiet voice with a haunted look in his eyes. He said he vomited twice at what he saw while working to excavate the living and the dead from the ruins of the church. Later, however, he decided that he preferred pulling out the dead to trying to attend to the homeless and hungry survivors, because the first slow trickle of supplies sent in was not enough, and the crowds just attacked the cars as they came. There was no way to get down and hand things out calmly unless the military was there. But when the soldiers were there, he said--and at this Ever burst out laughing, so far past stressed that this was hilarious--a kid came up to ask for bread, and one of the soldiers replied, "You want pan? Here, have some of this! PAN! PAN!" and mimed shooting his gun so that the kid ran away. And on top of all this, at one point someone started yelling that the sea was coming in in a tsunami. Pisco is right by the beach. Apparently the water did come up two blocks into the town, but it never reached the main square.

Catherine's first reaction on hearing this story: "If you go down again, let me know, because I'd like to go help." I was floored. In my head I asked, "Did you hear what he's been saying for the past hour?!" I suppose I'm just more cautious or fearful than she is, but Ever's stories about sleeping in a tent with no blanket (he gave his sleeping bag to a homeless mother) and not finding enough food or water for himself, let alone anyone else, and the crowds fighting for supplies, did not exactly inspire me to jump up and go there. I feel unsafe enough in our own neighborhood of Delicias/Tupac, where we get our guy friends to walk us around at night and don't take taxis by ourselves after dark and have to endure various levels of whistles, catcalls, and verbal harrassment just walking down the street... I would simply be too scared for my physical safety to go somewhere basically chaotic like Pisco was after the earthquake. But Catherine reasoned quite sensibly that since some time had passed, there were aid organizations going down that she could go with as a volunteer. (She was right, as we learned from the news in the next week.) She hasn't gone yet, however, because our friends kept saying they would go and then not doing it after all.

Our parish collected clothes and food items to send south... and that's been it as far as the earthquake around here. But we know there is an incredible amount of rebuilding to be done, and that thousands of people are still homeless. If you want to support the relief efforts, you can donate to the American Red Cross's work in Peru at http://american.redcross.org/site/PageServer?pagename=ntld_peru&JServSessionIdr006=o5vhiluha1.app194a.
Thanks on behalf of the people who have lost everything and will benefit from your help.

...oh, and speaking of help: The money donated by my readers to get books for the Fe y Alegría library is here! Sister Iris now has $255 to get some good literature for her students. Thanks so much to all who donated and I will keep you updated on what the money is used for!