"What is that? What's happening? "It's an earthquake! We have to get out of here!"
Rewind.
It is a beautiful, sunny day in Crucita. The ocean is Caribbean blue and glassy. Almost no waves or currents are discernible in the beautiful sea. The breeze is cool and the sun is hot. The day is perfect.
We have very little to do today. Some laundry perhaps. A trip into Portoviejo for cat food. Why not, though there is enough food for another two days. The bus ride is always enjoyable as is the city proper. The mall is very busy. The teen aged girls are dressed to the nines. The boys, are in pursuit. The city as always; is bustling with life. Street vendors peddle their wares. All is good.
We buy our cat food and linger in the air conditioning for a bit. We are happy.
The bus ride back is uneventful. I stand as my wife sits in the last available seat. Many from the city are heading to Crucita for an afternoon and evening on the beach. The bus is always crowded on Saturday. All is normal.
We arrive at our stop. As we make our way down our street my neighbor, fellow musician and friend, Fernando approaches. He is on his way to church. He is doing well. We are doing well. Chao!
Back home now. My wife is enjoying the cool breeze while working on her latest blog post.
I am taking sun in the courtyard. The is a resounding BOOM and the ground seems to quiver. It sounds as though there might be construction nearby. It feels as though they have dropped large boulders out of a dump truck. Five minutes later comes another BOOM. It feels the same.
"Did you feel that?" I ask my wife. "Yes." she says. "It felt like someone dropped something heavy close by."
"I think it might have been an earthquake." I say. I am half joking. No one else seems alarmed. The moment passes and we forget it. For now.
Our friends Tamy and Jared call. Jared wants me to go deep sea fishing with him, his brother, and cousins tomorrow. I am excited to go. I haven't been fishing in a long time.
"We are out of minutes on our phone. We need to recarga (recharge)." says my wife. "We can do it in the morning." I say. I want to make dinner and watch a movie. We eat. We watch the sunset over the Pacific from the terrace as we do every night. Music comes from everywhere as it does on the weekends. The Malecon is beginning to heat up. We decide on a movie and settle in to watch it. It has been a good day. It is peaceful. All is right.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOOOOM! It now sounds as if a giant bowling ball has been hurled at us, rolling towards us as great speed. Is the earth moving?
My wife yells "What is that? What's happening? "It's an earthquake!" I yell. We must yell to be heard. "We have to get out of here!" We get up to run. We are on the second floor of a concrete house. We have to get down the stairs and out of our courtyard or be crushed. It is the only thought in my mind. My wife is thrown off her feet by the quake. I turn and she is flat on the ground looking up at me. Her eyes are huge. The electricity goes and we are plunged into night. She screams again. "What is happening?" I scream "Earthquake! We have to get out of here now!" I grab her and pull her to her feet. She is frozen with fear. I am on the verge. We have no time for fear. The quake seems worse in the dark. Maybe it IS worse.
I pull her to the stairs and she is frozen no more. We hurl ourselves down the stairs and are lucky to make the ground floor. We must avoid falling plaster and chunks of concrete. We make the gate. No keys. I run into the dining room and grab a set. The key doesn't work. The steel tongue of the lock is bent. We cannot get out! We are surrounded on three sides by concrete and plaster. There is a disconcerting sound above the rumble of the earth. The sound of huge rocks being chewed by a living thing. It is the sound of concrete and brick moving against each other. The houses are moving against each other. Slamming together. Brick against concrete. The sound is as loud as the quake. Deafening.
Then there is another sound. Sloshing. I become painfully aware we are standing over our cistern which is full of water. If the concrete slab gives way we might fall in and drown. A single brick comes loose from the wall above us and misses us by a foot. It leaves a red blotch on the cement. The cistern's cement cover is blown into the air 2 feet away and breaks as it lands on the ground. The force of the moving water is greater than its weight. Great gouts of water are being thrown out of the opening. We cannot stay here. Our neighbor Maria is pounding on our gate screaming for us to get out. "Esta Bien!" I yell so Maria knows we are OK. "Otro puerta (other door)!" My wife yells to Maria.
"The back gate!" my wife cries to me. The way leads under our house though a breezeway. We have no choice. She is right. We make the gate. It unlocks easily and we flee down the alleyway. Brick walls come crashing down around us. We make it to the beach. It feels as though we have been on a small boat all day and just stepped onto the dock. The ground lurches and rocks slowly as the quake ends. We feel dizzy and disoriented. No time for that either.
It has been less than a minute though it seems like forever has passed. How we are uninjured I don't know. Our eyes lock. We have the same thought. The beach may not be safe. We run up another alley. Back towards our home and neighbors. Uphill. Higher ground. Our neighbors are here in the courtyard, as wild eyed as we. We speak in broken Spanish. "Tsunami", they say. Slow down. "There might be a tsunami." That is what they are saying. We run to the house to grab our passports, documents, and shoes. We are going to have to run for the mountain behind us. Another neighbor appears on his motorcycle and says "No tsunami, no tsunami!" Leo asks him what he knows. The epicenter has been determined. Esmeraldas, to our north. There will be no tsunami. There will be no more information tonight. This will have to be enough.
We may still have to flee. This may not be the end. Our neighbors return to their home as do we. Blankets, pillows, chairs, and water. Quickly! We meet again in the courtyard. We wait safely away from falling debris. Leo offers me a cigarette. I accept gladly though I have quit again. This is no time for quitters I tell myself, trying to grasp any shred of our situation.
Cars are streaming out of Crucita now. To where I don't know. I search my mind for knowledge of quakes. We have never experienced one before. Was this a big one? We don't know. Our neighbors are saying there have been none like this in their lifetime. They don't know either. Aftershocks are certain. They could be almost as bad. What if the worst is yet to come? We wait in the darkness. Hours pass. We chance our homes again after careful inspection. Yet another quake! Not as strong as the first but it is enough to send us all to the beach. Many are here now. We find out one of our neighbors has been killed by falling debris. I realize we are all in shock. As we sit there there are two more quakes; each less intense than the last.
At four in the morning we make a decision. Back home. We must sleep and the worst seems to be over. It this a good decision? I don't know but we have little choice. We have no information, no way to get news, no way to call anyone. We must sleep because we may be walking or running soon. We insure everything we must have is by the gate. The keys are in the lock. If we have to bug out we are ready.
We have time to think now, laying in the silence and darkness. Are our friends in Portoviejo OK? No electric probably means no water. It means no access to cash. We have no way to contact our family and that thought makes things much worse. We realize this could get ugly very fast. Survival mode. If it is as bad as we fear we must assume the worst and prepare accordingly. We try to sleep doing just that. Sleep will not come. Not until the next afternoon.
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