Aliya, Asher and I (Ben was safe in Boston) were on the couch, snuggled closely watching youtube music videos, when a roar came from deep inside the soul of the world. The room began to rattle and the loud sounds of the “temblor” (what the Chileans consider to be a “tremble” but what I consider to be a full blown 6.8 earthquake) came crashing around us! The 5 foot painting on the wall behind us smashed down on our heads while the ceramic vases and wine bottles on the mantel crashed and splintered our sense of security.
“An earthquake!” I shouted, “Quick! Run into the bathtub!”
There we were, all 3 of us, crouched in the bathtub with Asher crying over and over, “I don’t want to die today! I don’t want to die today!” as the building swayed back and forth. We waited until the swaying returned to wiggling and then back to a steady state, before leaping out of the tub to get our headlights and water bottle.
Out into the hall we were met by our wonderful neighbors who came to see how we were doing. They took us in and comforted the kids with an endless supply of coke and chocolates (which I believe can be found in most Chilean homes), while I went back to clean up the mess of broken glass, spilled wine, and disarray left by the temblor.
The first thing that greeted me when I walked back into our apartment was the sweet and sour stench of the blood-red sea of spilled wine which we never had the chance to drink. Of course, the inexperienced Bostonians would place the nice Chilean wine bottles, which we had just bought from the vineyards, right on the mantel where they were bowling pins easily swayed and knocked down by the punch of the temblor.
The best part was when I was putting Aliya to bed that night, she looked up at me with those big beautiful blue eyes and said, “I’m so glad Daddy wasn’t here . . . He wouldn’t have fit in the tub!”
