Festina Lente

Terremoto means earthquake in Spanish and this was the first one I’ve ever experienced save the middle-of-the-night tremor we had in New Hampshire back in April of my sophomore year of college. I was in a combi on my way to our directors house for a pizza celebration as we are winding down our training activities this week and next. We were driving along, and it felt like we ran over about a dozen or so speed bumps right in a row. As we were in a residential neighborhood, and speed bumps are common in these neighborhoods, I didn’t think much else of it until people started coming out of their houses. We’d been told there had been an earthquake and over the next few hours more and more details surfaced as to the severity of the earthquake. The epicenter was offshore of Ica which is the department south of Lima, and from what I’ve heard it registered a 7.9 on the scale and was felt down in Chile and all the way up to Colombia! Parts of Ica and Pisco were totally destroyed and the last death toll I’d heard was 400. Another interesting bit I saw on the news is that the wall of a prison collapsed and that over 600 prisoners escaped! Just so you know, the affected area is a few hours south of Lima, and maybe 15 or 20 hours south of my site, so I shouldn´t be seeing too may of those escapees hopefully.

There have been a bunch of tremors, well over 100, since the quake. It is odd living in a neighborhood with so many dogs because they sense the tremors before we do, and will start barking and freaking out a few seconds before the tremor.

The strangest part of this experience is the fact that not two days ago in spanish class we learned the vocabulary for natural disasters including the words for earthquake and tremor. Que raro. In any case, thanks for all of the e-mails of concern. Don’t let this scare you away from coming to visit!