Temblor

I woke up about 2:15 am, hot and feeling uncomfortable. I’d fallen asleep with the beginnings of a chest cold.

I got up and walked to the living room to see if more water had entered the house. Last night, during a torrential rain, water had somehow entered the front room and I had spent about 45 minutes mopping up.

As I stood there I heard a noise that seemed to come from the house just up from mine. I wondered if there were some thieves trying to break in. But I heard the noise again and went to look if I could see anything. After the noise subsided for a few seconds I felt the house shaking. So, I went and stood in a doorway – the safest place to stand during an earthquake if you can’t get outside and clear of buildings.

For what felt like a few minutes (but was probably no more than a minute) the earth trembled. The garage doors swayed and made all sorts of noises. Suddenly it was over, but by then many people in our neighborhood were out in the streets.

I went and talked with my neighbors across the street – Yolany and her three children. No, it wasn’t an earthquake , they said, only a “sismo,” a “temblor” - a tremor.

As we stood around Yolany talked about tremors many years ago when the people brought their beds out onto the open patios of the houses to sleep there.

It’s un-nerving to have the earth shake underneath your feet.

But I kept wondering what might be happening in other parts of the country and what we might need to do at Caritas. It appears that there was a strong quake (7.1) that hit northeast of the islands off the north coast of Honduras. Who knows how the tremors have affected other areas of the country.

I’ll try to go back to sleep and then see what needs to be done in the morning.