Earthquake!!!

I don't have much time to write right now, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm okay and survived the earthquake. I'm actually in Lima right now for my mid-service medical exams and meetings so we felt it really strong. We were in our hostal watching a movie and started to feel some shaking. We thought someone was messing around with us and just shaking the couch we were on, but then it didn't stop. We realized it was an earthquake and all got in the doorway. Six of my friends and I were huddled under a doorway when a huge window in the skylight crashed to the floor right at our feet. That's when I started to get really scared. Our hostal is really old and has rickety old wooden floors. We looked up to the ceiling and could see the walls starting to separate. At the point I wondered if I might die in the earthquake. It just kept going and going and felt like it would never end. I wanted to run outside, but I thought the stairwell might collapse if we tried so we just stayed in the doorway praying no more windows would fall and that it would end soon. They say it lasted two minutes, but it felt more like 45. It was one of the scariest things I've ever experienced and I still feel shaky.

After the quake ended, we were obviously really shaken up and wanted to find the rest of our friends. No cell phones were working, but we knew our friends were at this one bar so we decided to walk down there. There was such energy in the streets, everyone was buzzing. We didn't see much damage where we were, but we're staying in the nicest section of Lima so I would imagine it's a lot worse in other places. We saw a few broken windows, but not much more. We were happy to find our friends at the bar, but still didn't know where two of our friends were (there are 16 of us here now for our meetings). At first we weren't even sure if it would make international news, but there was a computer with internet at the bar and just 45 minutes after it happened, it was the #2 news story on yahoo.com. That's when we got really nervous because we knew our parents were going to hear about it and get really worried when they couldn't get through.

You all probably know a lot more than I do because I haven't been able to see much news, but I heard this morning that they are now categorizing the earthquake as an 8.0. It happened about 90 miles south-southeast of Lima and they say in Lima it registered around 7.5. I can't even imagine what it must have been like at the epicenter. Some of our friends live in the department of Ica right where it happened. Luckily none of them were in town when the earthquake struck. They've all say though that their families are okay and their houses are still standing so that's a relief, but most people weren't as fortunate. My friend Rachel said when she talked to her host mom that she kept saying "and this neighbor's house fell and this person died". It's just so incredibly devastating. We had a meeting with one of our directors this morning who had come from a meeting at the Embassy and he said there is no running water or electricity and 50% of the sewage system was destroyed. He said there are still dead bodies all over the streets and a lack of organization in distributing food, clothes, blankets and other donated goods. Apparently what food they do have is really expensive. Rachel heard chicken is 15 soles a kilo (regularly 6 soles) and you only get 3 breads for one sol as apposed to 10.

Giff finally got through to me around 11:30 pm. I was so happy to hear his voice because I was sure he and my parents were really concerned. I knew my parents had probably been calling him frantically and sure enough he said they had. At the time we talked, he told me CNN was reporting 17 deaths and two aftershocks - one of 5.8 and another of 5.9. I only felt one of the two aftershocks, but we're still feeling tremors. There was one yesterday morning (which I didn't feel) and another one this morning, which I did feel. Here we are just a few days later and the death toll is close to 500 people. The worst part is that I'm sure it will just keep growing as more relief agencies start cleaning up.

I'm sure there is so much more I'm not telling you, but I wanted to send an update while I had a few minutes because I know you're all worried and I haven't had time to respond to all of your emails.

I love you all and I appreciate all of your prayers, calls, emails, etc.

It still feels kind of surreal that we lived through all of that. The weirdest thing is that I had a dream the night before it happened that there was a huge earthquake. I've never felt an earthquake in my life so it's really random that I dreamt that. Last night I had another dream that there was another major earthquake so I'm still feeling really uneasy.