I rock your world

It is official: I bring earthquakes.

Growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, it is understandable I´ve experienced my share of earthqakes given the tectonics of the region. But my family can attest that quakes seem to follow me. I was home in San Jose during the 1989 Loma Prieta quake, visiting Los Angeles at the time of a big 1992 quake, visiting my cousin in SoCal when the 2003 Paso Robles quake happened, and the Alum Rock area of San Jose got a nice jolt the day after I got there from Seattle just a couple weeks back (and I have photos to prove it on picasa! Ok, they are just funny to me & Mai because of our crazy evening where we didn´t believe my mom that there was an earthquake, since we were driving and did not feel it. Mom, I apologize here in writing that I mocked you and your trembling fear from the experience).

I joked that I would inform the proper authorities in South America that I was arriving and to allocate due resources for earth quake preparedness and recovery. And also jested with my housemates my first night in town there would soon be a quake: the power had out & I went to take the blame but said I usually bring earthquakes instead, to which they assured me this was a relatively stable region with most movement farther down south. And I was accused of being responsible for the big quake in Chile a couple days ago, but that was so far away I didn´t take it personally. But last night around 10 PM, we got a nice, loooooooong, swaying earthquake in Ecuador.

This shaker turned out to be a 6.0, and most people had a strong reaction and excitedly share what it was like in their homes. It was definitely all that people I interact with talked about today (in addition to the usual Ecuadorian political corruptness and people´s need for more money, of course). Some of the other students at the school have never been in one, leaving them terrified while others were ¨disappointed¨at how weak the whole thing was. I guess there was some Ecuadorians running in the streets of Cuenca during the quake imploring God not to kill us all (religion has a strong role here, and 95% are Catholic, fun fact).

The quake actually didn´t phase me -- I usually still freak out even after all my prior experiences -- and felt like a long hammock ride more than the jolts that make my heart race. My housemate Julie had just come out of the shower and ran out in a towel, worriedly debating what to do and essentially freaking out. Her husband was still in the shower, but she also made him come out, and I just hung out in the doorway looking over my homework. And the funniest part, and why I am rambling on so much about it, is that I had been writing a little essay at the time of the quake. The assignment was to describe places in the US that tourists MUST visit, and with my rudimentary Spanish I had been composing a sentence ¨In San Francisco, there are beautiful national parks, great restaurants, and...¨ I had literally been considering my final descriptive element when the earth began to shake. So I added that to the list and my teacher laughed when I happily read my masterpiece to her (In fairness to the other city I wrote about, Nueva York, I also added a ¨bad¨thing about NYC).

So, Ecuador, I apologize for bringing you a quake. And all the hair I´ve been shedding at home and in the school. What bad gifts to bring to your wonderful country.