Shaken

January 12, 5:00 p.m.

I poke at a meatball in the pan to check if it's ready. Looks good! I smile, satisfied. My goal was to have dinner ready at 5:00 p.m. and everything is done right on time. The next few minutes are a blur. I remember hearing what sounded like a heavy dump truck drive past on our street. Then everything started shaking violently. I hear screaming outside and run to the doorway of the kitchen. What to do? I then see Jason running towards me. The shaking becomes worse as the house begins to buckle and sway. Knowing that Jayden was with Jason in the living room and not seeing him now I yell at Jason. "Where's Jayden? Where's Jayden? Get him!" Jason runs back and the house is buckling so bad now he almost loses his balances several times. I'm terrified. Doorways are safer, I remember from earth quake school drills, so I crouch down in one. A second later I have Jayden in my arms." Stay in the doorway", I yell at Jason, as I cover Jayden's small body with mine. I can't honestly describe what it feels like to have a cement, brick house swaying and buckling, underneath you. I just remember feeling so helpless and not knowing what to do. What's a wooden doorway going to help if the cement crumbles around me? I wonder. The quaking seems to last for a long time. I hear Denise screaming outside and calling "Jezi, Jezi" (Jesus, Jesus). I close my eyes to pray but don't know what to say. The rumbling stops but I remain where I am. Jayden starts to squirm to get out from my hold but I hold him tighter. After a few minutes we get up. The air is thick with dust. It's almost like looking through a thick fog. I'm just about to check the damage in our living room when I feel the ground begin to sway underneath me again. Once again we crouch in the doorway, until the heaving and shaking stops. I stay sitting longer now, knowing there might be more tremors. Jason cracks the outside door open and talks to Anoud and Denise. Denise is hysterical, and can't be calmed down. Seeing this Nicholas is terrified. We do our best to calm her down and make sure everyone is okay. Minutes later the earth sways again. Not knowing what's going to happen next is almost unbearable. I'm so scared. After the tremor passes we wait again and then start checking for damages. Our living room is in shambles. Computers knocked down and fallen over, pictures off the wall, a ton of leaves that came from who knows where. What's even more alarming is when I look through a side window. Our entire side security wall has come down leaving a mass of rubble. Dust is everywhere. The kitchen is a mess. My glass vase holding my Mayan Riviera sand has shattered on the floor, leaving a mess of water and sand. The entire contents of my cleaning supplies cupboard litters the ground. Broken glass, pictures, nick knacks and food are everywhere. As I walk to our bedroom, I feel like I have sea legs. I keep feeling the ground buckling even though it's not. In the bathroom I find more disaster. Shattered lamp shades and broken toiletries cover the entire floor. What a mess. Unsure of what to do next, I decide to join Denise and her kids outside. We sit on our courtyard on a piece of cardboard. I feel more tremors. Denise is in shock. She cries, she screams, she weeps, she yells. It's like she's lost her mind. This really scares the kids, so I do my best to calm her. " From now on I will take my children to church, Jesus, she says, I will give all my money to the church, just help us Lord." I pat her arm while holding Jocemine. "Jesus, doesn't want your money," I finally tell her. "He wants your heart." She looks at me for a moment and then nods. "Oh Jesus", she prays, "take my heart, forgive me."She sits silently for a long time with her eyes closed. She seems to have calmed down. Sabboule starts to complain that he's hungry, so Anoud who's stayed relatively calm, gives him a bowl of rice and beans. I help the kids eat it. I'm not hungry at all. Even the thought of food makes my stomach turn, but having some normality for these kids is the best thing. Nicholas refuses to eat, he's too upset. I finally manage to coax him to eat a few bites. I sit there for hours as Jason goes with Mark Williams to check the damages on the street. Every now and then we still feel tremors, and it's frightening every single time. When Jason come back he tells us of the disasters he's seen. Broken walls, broken homes, vehicles smashed, power lines on the road, everywhere you look there is chaos and destruction. By now it's dark and Jason and I make our way back inside. You're welcome to sleep inside with us in the kitchen we tell Anoud and Denise, but they tell us they feel safer sleeping outside under the stars. Needing some kind of plan, we decide to get a backpack ready in case we need to make a run for it. I quickly pack a big bottle of water, clothes, passports, money and IDs. We then pull a single person mattress into the kitchen since we decided that is probably the safest room in the house. We place a kitchen table over our heads and hunker down for the night. All three of us on a single mattress is a tight squeeze, but I need Jayden close to me. He falls asleep soon and after talking for awhile Jason and I doze off as well. At ten minutes to twelve I'm wide awake and less than ten minutes later the earth starts shaking again. "I'm scared", Jason tells me, "Me too", I reply. Before we fall asleep we read Psalm 18 together. Verse 7 says, "Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken because he was wroth." Never before has this been so real to me. To feel the earth tremble and the foundations of the hills shake. I'm in shock myself and when I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror, I see my eyes are permanently wide open. After the shaking subsides, none of us can fall asleep again. Jayden keeps asking for Thomas the Train, and we are just too wide awake to sleep. Jason makes himself a snack since he has hardly eaten all day and I just lay there staring at the underside of the table. Before we turn the lights out again Jason spots a cockroach on the table. It escapes and crawls down the table leg and disappears somewhere under our blankets, but I just don't care. There are a lot worse things to worry about then a cockroach in bed. Will we even survive the night? At 3:00 a.m. we finally doze off again. At 6:00 we are awakened by Jason's ringing cell phone. Someone is asking if they will be flying today, before he has a chance to answer the call is cut off. Excitedly I grab my cell phone in the hopes of calling someone, anyone, but the calls don't go through. Jason tries his as well, but to no avail. Our internet doesn't work either. Nothing works, no water, no stove, no internet, no cell phones. What to do? We wash up the best we can with some wet wipes and Jason gets ready to go to the airport. Jennifer arrives a little later and Jayden and I walk over to the other MAF families homes with her. The streets are a mess and many walls have tumbled down. People roams the streets some looking for loved ones and others just not knowing what else to do. At the Williams house I'm able to connect to MAF Satellite internet. It feels good being connected to the rest of the world once again. The internet is too slow to post pictures, but I'm at least able to share what happened. More to come.