Independence Earthquakes

Earthquakes are scary. It's not like I've never thought about that before. I have. I really have. I've seen the pictures of the damage. I remember what San Francisco looked like after the earthquake during the World Series.

But, I don't think you're understanding exactly what I'm saying. Earthquakes are poop in your pants, visions of dying, running away screaming, crying for your mama scary. This girl from Kansas isn't used the earth moving beneath her feet. She's used to the sky opening up and swirling and destroying everything in its path like a bull dozer the size of the Statue of Liberty (Who's crown, by they way, has opened to the public for the first time since the attacks. Yay!). But the Earth beneath her feet was always firm.

But, that is what I awoke to at 1:49 AM on July 4th, 2009. I just happened to be sleeping on the couch in the living room of the temporary apartment in which I'm staying. All four of us in one small, two room apartment became too much when my roomy began snoring louder than a jet taking off...three feet from me, so I had moved out there. All of the sudden I jolted awake from this harsh and loud shaking. I just couldn't figure out why I was shaking.

I wasn't cold. I was sick, so I thought it was possibly a dream since I had really been out of it the last couple of days. But, then I kind of sat up on the couch and braced myself. I looked at everything else and it was shaking too. The pictures on the wall, the candles on the table. The windows were making a lot of noise. And, did I mention that I am on the 21st floor of a high-rise apartment? So, honestly, I just laid there trying to figure out what was going on.

In all the research that I did on Panama, all I ever found were good things. It's beautiful. The people are nice. There are lots of beaches. It's cheap. It's safe. Never did I read anything about it being in a seismic area. Ever. So I honestly was having a hard time putting together in my head that it was an earthquake I had just felt. Of course, being the American I am, I honestly just assumed it was a bomb and that some terrorist cell in Panama had figured out there was and American in the building and decided to just go ahead and take it out in its entirety. My mind would just not register that it was an earthquake.

After about two minutes or so my other two roommates (one roommate had stayed at another co-workers house that night) emerged from their rooms. I was still perched on the couch waiting for the building to collapse. Pam came out first. I just sat there and looked at her. Finally I choked out, "What was that??" She didn't answer. Then Silvia showed up. She was yelling something about an earthquake and how she was gonna die and was kind of walking around in circles like she was crazy.

That kind of brought us out of our trance and we were all laughing and coming to the consensus that it had been, indeed, an earthquake. I went and changed my underpants and came back and we all talked a little more. Silvia turned on her computer and immediately found a site that registered seismic activity all over the world and it had already been documented as a magnitude 6.0 on the Moment Magnitude Scale. And, let me tell you, that's a large sucker. It was centered some 40 km from Panama city (See the USGS page about the quake.

Needless to say, my Independence Day began with a big 'ol shake and a bang. Thankfully there were no casualties anywhere. There was very little damage. Pam and I walked over toward the office yesterday and we saw a collapsed building in the street. We're not sure if it was from the earthquake or if they were doing construction and that knocked it down. Either way, it was a pretty crappy, uninhabited building, so nobody was hurt.

Now that I've told the exciting earthquake tale, the other findings of the week are not so exciting. In fact, I barely remember what all I was going to write. Actually, I don't remember at all. (I think that has more to do with the screaming Mexican next to me than my brain. Mexico's playing in the CONCACAF Gold Cup and she's going crazy. She hasn't stopped yelling since the game started actually. I love having roommates.)

I'm still waiting on my things to clear customs. Hopefully everything will be cleared sometime this week. I'm hoping by Wednesday, in which case I would hope that the moving company would bring my things to the apartment on Thursday. But, you never know. This is Panama. And, as nice as the people are, everything moves at its own pace, and it's not a fast pace. As we've found out, if it's Monday and they tell you it'll be done by Wednesday, you better ask which Wednesday.

So the adventure continues with my roomies. I'll just be glad to be able to move into a place of my own. The next obstacle, besides my things clearing customs, will be finding a car. Financing may be an adventure. It may be harder than first thought for me to get financing as a foreigner. We'll see.

Until next time. Peace out dudes.

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