terremoto

yesterday around 6 pm we were sitting in davey´s aunt´s apartament with the family when my chair began to wiggle a little, and then a little more, and then i realized that the whole room, and the whole building was not just wiggling, but shaking. we all jumped up and huddled under a doorway hugging, holding hands and davey´s uncle ´tata´ calling out to god to spare us. for about two minutes we room surfed, i was half smiling, half imagining what would happen if the building collapsed. but we were fine. the streets were full of people yelling, running, trying their dead cell phones. we ran back to the house we are staying at, half laughing, taking pictures as we ran. CRAZY!!! i guess it was about 7.6 on the r. scale. pretty big. it hit harder in the south. 387 dead, including, sadly, the 84 year old neighbor who we had met only two days before who called me a pretty doll. sad. there is an open casket outside the front door and lots of people sitting with the body.
we are safe though, and tonigh headed for huaraz to do some hiking in the andes and hopfully breath some clean air! xoxo