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©2016 TJ & Tamera Overman, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ReUse by permission only.
*We have no pictures to post as there was no electricity and we were conserving our phones for calls if service came available.
Dawn. Cool and calm. There are no birds chirping. No geckos croaking. There is only silence. This is not at all normal.
No way to get information. We can't know what is ahead. We can only imagine and that is a walk through my head I do not want to take. Want no longer matters here. Need is the only thing that matters here.
My wife and I have foregone sleep. It will not come until our bodies must have it. We know that now. Our minds are racing. There are too many things to consider. Too many DO IT NOW items that are essential for us to survive. Step back and organize. Pick one task and focus on that task. We are putting together our essentials grab bag in earnest.
Cash, passports, bank cards, vital paperwork, change of clothes, keys, drinking water, matches, flashlights, etc. There is still no power. Probably for some time. We still have no way to contact anyone. We might have gotten word out to our families if we had minutes on our phone. I procrastinated. No minutes. No word.
Now we turn our attention to water. We have 2 gallons of drinking water in the dispenser. Another gallon in our freezer. Not enough for 3 days let alone the weeks it could be before we can get more. The cistern. The lid blew of it last night. Is the cistern itself damaged? How much water was in it? How much is in it now? We check. It is almost completely full. Properly rationed we have water for at least a month, probably two. The water must be boiled before drinking though it is treated. Regardless, we must be very careful with it. Sickness will not do. The only way to get the water is to lie down on the ground and lean into the cistern. I am not comfortable with that. Aftershocks are still occurring. It must be done. I do it. All is not as it should be.
Luckily, we have just refilled our propane tank. it should last six months with normal use. I estimate 5 months when factoring in the amounts of water we must boil. We will not have an issue there.
Food is next. Generally, we live sparingly. We are only two. Tiendas and fish markets abound here. We were lucky though. A good friend has visited, leaving just days ago. We stocked up on rice, beans, lentils, oatmeal, and other dry goods. He brought me a huge jar of peanut butter too. The meat will not last with no refrigeration and must be cooked and/or eaten. There isn't much. Shrimp, chicken, ham, and bologna. There are no canned or frozen vegetables. Why would there be? We buy them fresh off of street vendors or from our tiendas every few days. We have 8 limes, 4 green peppers, four red onions, garlic, 2 tomatoes, 1 and 1/2 loaves of bread, butter, 6 eggs, plenty of spices, salt. and 2 apples. We have enough food altogether to last for 14 days.
Cash. Here is a problem and a very large problem at that. We did not go to the ATM yesterday. No ATM's working now. Not here anyway. We have $24 dollars to our name. In the bank? Enough. On the credit card? More. Can we use them? No. When will we be able to? Where will we be able to? We have no idea. When will we know? We must spend this $24 wisely. Will there be price gouging? I don't know but I think there will. Maybe not for locals but for gringos? I think so. I do. This is the scariest thing in my mind. How will we eat? If prices stay as they were $24 could easily buy another month of food including feeding the cats, if we spend and ration properly. If they don't we might be in real trouble here. What if we can't leave the house? What if there is looting and rioting? We will wait and see. There is no alternative.
Now we know we are in decent shape. It is not great shape but I fear it will be better than many other's. Will people try and take what we have? We are gringos in a poor country not our own. Everyone here is so nice but if my kids were starving I would do anything. So would anyone else. I do not want my wife scared but we are a team. She has to know. I say it out loud. She already does. She is smarter than I am. I am smart enough to know it. This is nowhere close to perfect.
The church bells are ringing. Why? We can see the steeple from here. The cross from the steeple is not there. Oh, yes. It is Sunday. Church is in session. The first normal thing today. It is most welcome.
There is nothing for it. We are going to have to leave the implied safety of our eight foot concrete walls. We must go out. We need minutes for our phone. We need to see whether anything is open. We must determine the disposition of other people and whether we will be able to buy food and drinking water. Reconnaissance mission. Best to do it now, early. We have to buy what we can just in case there is none a week from now.
We're off. Multiple tiendas are open against all odds; generators thrumming. This could be good news for reaching our families. We usually obtain phone minutes from these tiendas as you can't buy them online unless you have a credit card through an Ecuadorian bank. There are two ways to get them. The shopkeepers can add them themselves using a terminal or we can by a tarjeta (card). The cards are like scratch off lottery tickets. You buy them and get almost the amount of minutes you pay for but, you could double or triple that amount with luck. They cost $1 extra. You dial them in from your phone. These are our best bet as the terminals can't possibly be working. Three open tiendas. No tarjetas.
They do have supplies however. Good to know. They are getting local deliveries from farmers too. Very good to know. We will not starve. We have time to talk about how best to spend our limited cash. They are all out of water. Not good to know. Thank God for our cistern. I hope it is not leaking.
Our short term survival is ensured.
Long term survival is at the plate.
We decide to sit down at one of the many covered benches that dot the Malecon. The sky is clear, and the ocean is most beautiful. Another piece or normality in an increasingly surreal day. We discuss some things. No one is on the beach with one exception. A father and his toddler are splashing in the shallows. They are here on vacation maybe. Why doesn't matter. The toddler needs normal.
No buses are running. They are our primary form of transportation. We wonder how Portoviejo, our personal major supply port has fared. If it is bad will Manta be any better? When will electricity be restored? Are our friends OK? We have only seen our neighbors. Just then we spot our friend Fernando at Robert's Tienda. He sees us too.
He is fine. His wife Jessica, was away at the time. She is OK. Fernando was at church when "it" happened. It was not good. The roof came down on them. Amazingly, no one was seriously injured. He has water and food. He hopes his wife can get home. We tell him if he needs anything to let us know. He asks if our family knows. When we say no he says he will post something to Facebook when phone service comes back. He has a few minutes on his phone. It isn't enough for an international call. He needs what he has so he can stay in contact with his wife. We would not dream of using his minutes.
We ask him what if any, news he's heard. Portoviejo is bad. He is going there if he can get there. He tells us the main road has huge cracks in it. There are no buses today. The road is severely damaged just before it reaches the bridge over the Portoviejo river. This damage is no more than 30 meters away from our good friends Tamy and Jared's house. We are very worried now. Manta will be our only hope it seems. He knows Manta suffered damage. The Manta Airport tower. It is a tower no more. It is flattened. Hopes for a working ATM are hovering just above zero. We are off the edge of the map.
As we say goodbye Fernando tells us to be careful and vigilant. He has the same fears we do. We share the sentiment and are off. Home. We need to boil water. I need to measure the water level in the cistern. This will be a daily occurrence. A leak could be devastating.
Home now. It is past noon and is the hottest part of the day. We are thankful winter is beginning. Just two weeks ago the hottest days of our time here accosted us. March is the hottest month. Now it is not only bearable, it is actually pleasant. I cook our first ration of beans and rice. There has been no sleep. Maybe tonight.
BOOM! Another aftershock! Now another! No damage, no problem. For now.
We eat and head to the roof to view the sunset. It seems important somehow. The sun is a golden orb, magnified by the atmosphere. It is the most beautiful sunset we've seen here yet. We turn to look over the mountains. There is a magnificent rainbow in the clouds. It is a huge half circle of wondrous color and light almost directly over us. Breathtaking. We hope it holds promise. We hope it means life. We hope.
Questions? E-mail us!
©2016 TJ & Tamera Overman, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. ReUse by permission only.
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