One Day at at Time

Tuesday, May 20, 2008
After a good supper of baked potatoes, apples and bread we decided to go for a walk to check on our friends who work at one of the western style restaurants. We were hoping for some apple pie ala mode, but, settled for a brownie sundae which was very good. For some reason we’re finding ourselves enjoying comfort food. The restaurant is located on the second floor of a large shopping mall/office building. I’m hoping to post a picture of what the ground floor looks like when I make this posting. As of 4:00 P.M. it has become a sort of refugee center with people setting up mats everywhere. Because of our language barrier we’re not sure if these people are refugees from the quake areas or people from Chengdu who are either one of the 250,000 here who have become homeless or are choosing to stay out of their apartment for until the aftershocks are done.
We’ve spent every night in our apartment except for a short part of last night. At midnight our phone rang. A friend who works with us called to tell us that she had heard that there was an earthquake predicted in the 6-7 magnitude range and advised us to get outside. We stayed inside until about 4:00 A.M. when we received a text message from our office manager telling us that there really was a prediction. We got dressed, took our loaded backpack and headed outside. We found a bench near our building and settled in for about 20 minutes. The bench wasn’t much harder than our mattress so we weren’t terribly uncomfortable. However as we were stretched out there we kind of thought we’d be just as safe in our apartment so we decided to head back upstairs. After preparing a food and water supply in our bathroom, (small with supporting walls), we climbed in bed and after a short time we both fell into a sound sleep. We woke up at about 6:30 to a text message informing us that work was called off for the day. We stayed in bed sleeping off and on until 8:30.
Those of you who remember the time after 911 will recall how it was difficult to get much done. You found yourself kind of riveted to the television in a sort of hypnotic state. That’s what we’re experiencing today. Kathy keeps up on the television news and Steve searches the internet for any information that might prove helpful. It’s really interesting to use the USGS website to check up on earthquakes. We find they’re posted about 15 minutes after they occur.
After spending the morning in our apartment we finally walked over to Carrefour, (French supermarket), to use the ATM and look for a whistle which we’ve been told is a good thing to have if you’re stuck in a building. No whistle so we walked to IKEA for cheap ice cream cones and to visit Decathlon, a French sporting good store. Still no whistle so we walked back to Carrefour and purchased a bicycle bell that has a pretty loud signal. Our hope is we’ll laugh at the purchase later as you can probably understand.
The IKEA store is also becoming a sort of refugee camp as you’ll notice in the picture I’ve hopefully been able to post. Also, since IKEA has many bedding supplies many people were purchasing mats and blankets to send to the quake zones. One person from the USA purchased what looked like 150 thermal blankets.
I’m looking forward to the time when I’ll feel like posting translated signs that are a bit confusing. Right now, on this day, it just doesn’t seem appropriate. In the meantime we’re grateful for our safety and the ability to communicate regularly with our family via Skype and all of you via our blog. Those of you who have our e-mail, feel free to contact us, just keep politics and religion out of the message.