May 22

Just when we thought things were slowing down we've had three more aftershocks in the last 24 hours. The last one found us working in our 15th floor office. Some offices in our building are still closed. Up to the point in the day our office had been very productive, a quiet place where people were catching up with what was missed last week. After the tremor work basically stopped for the afternoon and people spent the rest of the time socializing, telling stories and laughing.

A common experience for all of us is to think we feel another tremor. You look around at other people and see if they are reacting and, if not, you keep quiet. As I've said before we can't begin to imagine how the people who were in the heart of the quake last Monday react to the tremors.

In this large growing city there is an incredible amount of building going on. Most of the buildings we see going up are in the 25 to 40 story range and will be used for offices and apartments. There are some places where you can stand and see 20 or more of the cranes used to bring materials to the top of these tall buildings. Those cranes must have been one of the scariest places to be in this city during Monday's quake. Most of the construction workers are migrants who come from villages to work. Each large construction site has one or more dormotories to house the workers. Since the earthquake the construction sites have been idle for two reasons. One is for safety and the other is due to the workers heading home to their villages to help their families.

As I'm writing this I've just been interupted by a convoy of 26 ambulances, sirens blaring, lights flashing going down the road below our apartment. This is the first time we've seen so many and the only time we've seen them going by our abode.

Today Kathy and I sent our students out with some cash and the challenge to use it in the most effective way they could to help the victims. When we return from our trip to Singapore we'll get a full report from them. Normally they would be working at the restaurant this weekend but they are not scheduled due to the slowing down of business in the past days. They'll do a good job, much better than we could.

We had no idea that the trip to Singapore would be so timely. We are very anxious to get out of here for the next week and not have to debate whether we should sleep with our pajamas on or fully clothed and ready to run. Hopefully the quakes are over and things will settle down. We'll try to post during our trip. In the meantime we appreciate your concern beyond measure.