Temblor

I woke up at 5:30am in order to get ready for the volcano hike and it was raining, pouring really hard. I texted the other volunteers and we decided to wait until a bit later to see if it would clear up. It didn’t. The drainage system here is no better than San Diego so in some places, there are lake-size puddles on dirt roads, and thus, some serious mud. 

I was sitting at my desk/plastic table attempting to read a book in Spanish around 9:00am and suddenly everything was shaking. My door squeaks a lot and it was opening and closing on its own and squeaking and I felt dizzy. It lasted about 15 seconds and I could have sworn it was my imagination. Finally I stood up and walked out in to the kitchen just as my host mom carried the baby out of their room and I said “terremoto?” and she said “temblor?” There was a 7.0 earthquake in Pasto, Colombia so all of Ecuador felt the effects but no damage or injuries were reported. In some houses near the Colombian border things fell off the wall and it was much stronger, but everyone is okay. I’m not afraid of earthquakes in California, but I admit I was a little scared here. It felt different and I’m absolutely sure that there was no consideration of building standards for this house as it looks like it was pieced together with brick and wood. Next time, I’ll try to keep in mind all the earthquake preparedness drills we had to do in school, back when earthquakes never seemed like a threat to me. 

So between buckets of rain and an earthquake, it didn’t seem like a good idea to hike a volcano today. My host parents said it would be dangerous as there could have been landslides. Plus I don’t have hiking boots, just running shoes so I’d be slipping and sliding all over the place. I’ll try to hike it next weekend instead. A lot of people are going out of town this weekend for the 4 day Carnaval so it looks like I’ll be resting a lot instead of adventuring. Though if the rain lets up, Sonia is going to take me to Quito tomorrow as she needs to run errands and I can find a bookstore which sells some English books. I’ve been dying for a good book.

My host mom just made soup for lunch called “carto de bola”, which I would have named “everything but the kitchen sink”- it had yuca, ribs, corn on the cob, ground beef, a big ball of mush with peas, carrots, raisins!, green beans, tomatoes, and peanut butter. It was so interesting and SO filling. They use peanuts/peanut butter in such a different way here! Only in savory dishes, usually with meat. They got grossed out when I explained what a PB&J was. Tomorrow I’m making pancakes for the family as they’ve never had them and they bought light syrup when I moved in because it was something they recognized as being American. I guess I won’t make the chocolate chip and peanut butter pancakes Amy usually made at 3770. 

<3 Chels