As you probably already know,
yesterday Costa Rica experienced a 7.6 magnitude earthquake. This will make the third earthquake I’ve
experienced since I arrived; the fourth in my life having experienced the
random one in NY last year (of which my neighbors were sure the construction
workers outside had knocked into the building).
Anyway of the four this one was definitely the scariest.
We had just finished recess, my
two fifth graders had settled in and I was getting ready to start my
lesson. I was standing in front of my
desk when I felt extremely ill. I felt
really dizzy and thought that I was going to faint. My vision was blurry and I was really
scared. If you’ve ever felt dizzy you
know that usually you can sit down or just stay still and it goes away. I kept waiting for this to happen and it
wouldn’t. All I kept thinking was please
don’t let me faint because I know all the nurses and doctors in training (aka
my students) would arrive in two seconds flat to observe me lying there on the
ground. In the distance I could see the
blackboard, which hangs from the ceiling, rocking back and forth and in my haze
I realized it had to be an earthquake. I
looked over to my students, who with their terrified faces confirmed, as we all
said at the same time, in my English only classroom, “temblor.”
The two girls quickly walked,
well really ran out of my classroom and I followed, though it was a bit
difficult. It was like one of those
amusement park rides where you can’t stand up straight because some force is
pulling you in another direction, only there was no ticket booth, there was no
cotton candy and there was no laugher. This
was real life. I arrived in the front of
the school in time to see the rest of the school evacuating. I instantly grabbed one of the kindergarteners’
hands and proceeded to the exit. When I
got just about to the gate, one of the teachers shouted “Teacher get the water
bottle.” I still don’t understand her thinking on this one, but she wanted me
to walk back and grab the bottle of water that was sitting on a nearby
table. I, like an idiot obliged. The kindergartner, who obviously had more
sense than I did; realizing that I was going away from the direction of safety dropped
my hand and followed the group. I guess
he learned at an early age, every man for himself. I later learned that the teacher was in such a
panic that the principal actually had to calm her down. She frantically kept shouting “It’s an earthquake,
it’s an earthquake.”
We walked behind the school to
the little concrete playground to wait it out.
The principal was very calm and collected the entire time. I really did admire her leadership. She gathered all the children in a circle and
explained to them, especially the younger ones (all the Kindergarten and First
graders were there at the time), the situation and how proud she was of all of
them for remaining calm. In the
background you could hear the custodian shouting on the phone and frantically
pacing because she couldn’t get through to her sons. The principal had to stop her speech to let
her know that her sons were fine. I
still felt a bit dizzy and realized we probably would be out there for a bit,
so I decided to sit down on the ground.
I guess the principal liked this idea because she told them all to sit
down with me and then all the teachers walked to the side and conversed. Well, listening to about twenty students tell
you how scared they were and recounting their version of what happened wasn’t
exactly what I’d call a good time so I decided we were going to sing a
song. What better song than “If you’re
happy and you know it.” They all sang,
though those were the most pitiful happy faces I’ve seen in my life, poor
things were probably scared to death.
The rest of the day was spent
recounting the tale; how mothers and grandmothers smothered children and began
praying, how people were on farms, or dizzy, or didn’t even know that there was
an earthquake.
I’d say the whole account only lasted
about twenty minutes, but it definitely felt longer. In those twenty minutes I learned a couple of
things. 1) In a crisis, don’t go back
for a water bottle, life is do short and I would like to not risk mine for a water
bottle, I don’t care if it was made of platinum I’m going to keep it moving;
and 2) Adults act worse than children in times of a crisis.
