AND THE SUN DID RISE

The sun did rise. By then, I had cleaned up everything I had the strength to. An earthquake takes it out of you. (Talk about an understatement.)But it doesn’t mean you are able to sleep, as much as you need the rest. It is similar to that feeling after Christmas morning. You get up early, everyone gathers around the tree, the presents are opened, and you eat something as special for breakfast. Perhaps you even have Christmas dinner. Then you sit around kind of in limbo, not knowing what to do with yourself. “Wow, Christmas is over for another year. It came so fast.” We’d known for the last fifteen years we were overdue for “the big one”, but you never really expect and/or prepare for it.

Sitting in that same chair, I stared at April while she slept on the couch. Numb. The electricity returned and with it, the news. More numbness. We discovered that the epicenter had been on hour from where Steve had spent the night. The next day his plan had been to have two important university meetings—in Concepción and Talcahuano. The first pictures on TV were precisely of those two cities, as they were the largest conglomerations of population hit. I’m sure I didn’t blink while I peered at the screen. This was so much worse than the earthquake of ’85. My mind reeled with the implications of it all, while at the same time thanking God that it had struck at 3:34 a.m. and not in the middle of the day. The same as the horror when a terrorist sets a bomb in a building, but then gratitude because it went off in the middle of the night, rather than when full of people.

Electricity was on, but all telecommunications were down. No way to talk to Steve.

National channels broadcasted images of a big fishing boat sitting in the plaza in Talcahuano—reminiscent of Noah’s ark resting on Mt. Ararat. Not only had the country suffered an 8.8 seism on the Richter scale, but an unannounced tsunami (which would prove to be a source of biting criticism toward government organizations) had washed up onto and across much of the populated Central-South coast in the Maule and Bio Bio Regions.

The images of the crumbled buildings, cars crushed inside parking garages, buckled roads, fallen bridges, and Tower of Pisa-like edifices teetering on foundations left me speechless. But when an earthquake of this magnitude hits what stands out even more is the look on people’s faces. The loss—of lives, livelihood, memorabilia, irreplaceable pictures etc. The horror. The shock. The angst.  Women mourned their homes—often the source of their self-worth, while men declared that being alive was important and that the material could be restored.

April and I spent a good part of the day assimilating the tragedy. We didn’t even eat. We stared and waited. And still the telephone lines remained silent.

What’s happening in the country today: Hundreds of aftershocks, some of 6+on the Richter scale, continue to ravage the nation, adding to the emotional instability.

Yesterday I traveled down to Curicó. Hard-it, but still the proverbial tip of the devastation iceberg, the city is busy scooping debris and getting on its feet. As adobe was the major construction material in centuries past, important old buildings no longer stand. Although it is not “business as usual,” the Ministry of Education is gathering school principals and administrators to solve immediate problems. A whole generation of children is shell-shocked and in desperate need of some kind of normalcy.

In the towns we have kind of “adopted”—Tomé and Dichato, the picture is grimmer. Everything was wiped out on the coast by the tsunami in Dichato, except one lone hotel. People took to the hills, but they aren’t going anywhere. This is their home and their source of livelihood. If they leave, they will truly lose everything. Plans are being made to hold classes for the some 2,000 children.

And today Sebastian Piñera will be sworn in as president of the Republic of Chile. The outgoing president, Michelle Bachelet, steps down with a whopping 84% approval of her time in office. People love her. And even with mistakes she made, no one doubted her abilities, intentions, or loyalty. What a way to start a new president’s administration. Regardless of political color, everyone is rooting for him to lead this country as it rebuilds itself.

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