I'd never felt an earthquake before moving to Guatemala, and I could definitely be okay if I never felt one again after my year here. If you've never experienced an earthquake, it's pretty hard to explain the sensation. With Guatemalan earthquakes, the whole room just sort of gently rocks. It completely freaks out your body and your sense of balance for at least the next few hours -- if not the rest of the day. It's like you go into hyper-paranoid mode, so with the slightest movement in the room or even blowing of the wind, your brain and stomach trick you into thinking it's another earthquake. Not so fun.
We've had two today, both small ones (5.6 and 5.4 magnitudes according to the news), but it's only noon. Let's hope those were the last of them.
One hit at about 9 a.m. our time, not long after people had come into the office for work. It lasted a little longer than people are used to, so we actually all evacuated the office and went outside. After only a minute or so, things were fine again though.
The other earthquake was earlier in the morning, around 5 a.m., while everyone in my house was still sleeping. Now that was a crazy experience -- being woken up by the house shaking as you're laying in your bed. I heard Leti, my roommate, awake on the other side of the room, so I starting asking, "Leti? Leti? Did you feel that???"
Since I was still half asleep, I didn't realize that I was mumbling to her in English (which she doesn't speak). She started yelling back at me in Spanish, "What? What??" and once I realized what language I was using, I switched back over to Spanish.
We cracked up about it later this morning while eating breakfast as she told me that, "All of sudden I see the mirrors moving on the wall and the whole house shaking. Then you start talking to me in some language I don't understand! For all I know, you could have been speaking in Devil's language! I thought it was the end of the world!!"
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
Not quite the end of the world, but definitely a crazy morning so far.
1 comment:
One of my earliest memories is being woken up in the middle of the night by an earthquake when I was living in California... Like you said, it's definitely one of the craziest, weirdest sensations.
Glad you're ok!!
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