Earthquake!

The big news in Ecuador last week: the Village People were cancelling their concerts in Quito and Guyaquil on short notice.

The Village People? Are they really still around? (I once performed in a college skit as the Leather Guy, complete with anatomy enhancing tube sock, but that's another story.) Apparently the Village People are still around and maintain an avid following in distant lands. The papers here speculated the cancellation was due to fears of the Swine Flu which has been on a tear in South America with a dozen deaths in Ecuador and many more further south where the cold weather seems to be breading a hardy new strain for export to the northern hemisphere. I went to the band's web site to find out more. Amidst goofy photographs of the band and its fans I found only this one sentence: "We apologize but due to circumstances beyond our control, Ecuador concerts in July have been canceled." Cowards! The good people of Ecuador deserve a better explanation than that.

For me, however, the big news last week was the earthquake. What earthquake, you ask? Don't worry, it didn't make the papers here either. It didn't even register on the local seismological authority's website. Apparently, this earthquake only struck my house. No one I know here felt or heard a thing. "It probably wasn't an earthquake," said one friend, in an attempt to calm me, "maybe it was just the mountain moving a bit." Holy smokes! Moving mountains? That sure sounds like an earthquake to me.

Seismic activity scares me silly. Of all the things to worry about since arriving in Ecuador last week--volcanoes, maniacal bus drivers, swine flu, and the very real possibility an airplane will fall on my house--earthquakes scare me the most.

So, here's what happened. Late Thursday night--I had just finished my previous posting in which, incidentally, I mentioned earthquakes--I heard what sounded like my upstairs neighbor moving furniture. This happens all the time in my New York place so I thought nothing of it. Only when I heard the sound again did I remember I have no neighbor directly above me here in Quito. The rumblings lasted only two or three seconds and after the second one it was quiet. I heard no commotion in the street above, no sirens, nothing. Somewhat doubting what I had heard, I went back to writing.

Then, about ten minutes later I heard a strange noise emanating from the floor to my left, near the refrigerator. It sounded at first like little claws scampering across the rough tile floor. I looked down expecting to see a mouse. But as the noise increased, I realized I was hearing an ominous cracking rather than the innocent scampering of little rodent paws. All of a sudden I saw the square ochre tiles start to buckle just inches from my feet. I sprang out of my chair--my scalp tingling with fear--and raced around the table. I jumped across the crack to the other side of the kitchen, the uphill side. (I should say here that my fear of earthquakes has been magnified by the design of this house, a good part of which appears to cantilever over the ravine. It makes for stunning views but does little for my phobia.) At that moment, all I could think of was getting myself over as far as possible towards the side of the house away from the edge. I didn't want to be on the wrong side if the crack continued, splitting the house down the middle in one fell swoop, like a machete on a coconut, spilling the contents--including me--down the ravine.

In five seconds it was over. I found myself standing against the far wall, my heart racing, staring at the crack in the kitchen floor. With visions of aftershocks in my mind--can't they sometimes be worse than the initial quake?--I began to think what to do next. First, I put on shoes and a jacket in case I needed to flee the house. But where would I go? This neighborhood is built on the side of a cliff, and many of the houses look much less sturdy than mine. (See right, for a neighboring house that looks just to be waiting for a nice shake.) Then I started to scan my apartment for load-bearing columns. If the earth were to start moving again I wanted to be able to go to the nearest one without thinking.

After about an hour of pacing and fretting and staring at the crack--which admittedly now looks smaller than it did that night--I finally went to bed. There I proceeded to stare up at the ceiling in the darkness, listening for the sound of structural failure. I don't know what time I finally fell asleep, but it was very late and I was fully clothed.

Earthquakes occur with unsettling frequency in Quito. But rather than making the people here more nervous, the frequency of the quakes appears to have disarmed them. They actually seem inured to the possibility that their city could collapse around them at any minute. (See left, from an earlier quake.) They take earthquakes in stride. The people I've told about my experience smile politely--a bit wearily, even--as if listening to a child who has just discovered a rather hum-drum fact of life. This sang-froid goes way back. In the middle of the 17th century, Mariana de Jesus, Ecuador's first saint, had this to say: "In Ecuador there will be no end to earthquakes or to bad governors." (El Ecuador no se acabara por los terremotos sino por los malos gobiernos.)

That sort of soothing fatalism may work for the people of Ecuador but as for me, I'll probably keep sleeping in my clothes for a while. Now, about those airplanes.

Quake damage -- it looked a lot worse while it was happening. Honest.