February 28, 2010
Yesterday, after all the earthquake madness happening all over Chile that I saw on TV, we stayed inside pretty much all day. At one point we ventured out to buy pop and water, but the only store that was open had a line around the block and the gas station, which was also open, but had nothing left — no beverages of any kind, and no food whatsoever, even though they only sell candy! On our street, there’s some kind of plumbing problem so there are rivers of water running on either sides of the sidewalk, but it’s not flooded or anything. By the looks of it, a couple of our neighbors lost their roofs, but the walls are still standing. Most of the places near us are mechanic shops or big warehouses, not residential, so we haven’t seen too many people to ask.
We had a wedding to attend last night so that was the first time we ventured out. I was surprised to see that the streets looked significantly — not Port Au Prince like. At all. In fact, if I hadn’t felt the 8.8 level earthquake less than 24 hours before, I wouldn’t have known anything happened. Sure, there were a few buildings that had rubble at their base from chunks of the facade that had fallen off, but we drove from our house, almost at the end of the red metro line, to metro Los Heroes before getting on the highway, and we didn’t see a single building that looked structurally damaged. I mean, obviously Santiago has areas that were hit very hard, but dude, this city was built to last.
The news has made things in Santiago look worse than they really are. Concepcion and further South where the epicenter hit is where the real damage is. But up here, life is shockingly normal. At the wedding last night, I would guess probably 120/160 people were in attendance because a lot of the major highways leading into Santiago are still blocked so people from out of town couldn’t get in. But it wasn’t like nobody came. The ceremony was moved to outdoors since the church they were going to have it at had crumbled enough of the structure to be unsafe. But the event center for the reception was totally intact. The real chaos is in the supermarkets where people are panicking and stocking up on everything.
But anyway. Speaking of normal. Here’s the latest family session we did. Aimee, Felipe, and Evan, are visiting from the U.S. Didn’t they pick the perfect moment?!? 
I guess the one benefit of the earthquake is that their flight is delayed since the airport is closed at the moment. Seba and I photographed their wedding in Chile last year, so we were happy to head out to Maitencillo and get some family portraits of them too! I think Aimee has done almost every single session that I have to offer. And Felipe’s mom found us the apartment that we’re going to buy. Best. Clients. EVER.
When Aimee and Felipe came down for the wedding, Evan was too little to come down, but now he’s a very mature 6 years old and he’s a world traveler so we finally got to meet him. I was a little nervous because 6 year old boys can be a total handful, but in the end, I couldn’t even believe how awesome Evan was in front of the camera. Aimee, you are seriously a supermom — it is rare to meet a kid like Evan that’s so well behaved and so much fun!
EWWWW, kissing is GROSS!!!!
Seba always captures the most amazing silhouettes.
Afterwards, Evan was rewarded for his good behavior with a plastic toy gun. I didn’t realize that it really is that easy to make a six year old boy that incredibly happy!
February 27, 2010
Holy shit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was the scariest thing I’ve ever experienced. And we’re on the ground floor in a house — people up higher in tall buildings got rocked way more than we did.
I’m posting to let everyone know that we are ok. Thank you for all the concerned emails. Our whole family is good and I’ve heard from most of my friends who are also good.
So here’s what went down. I’ve been averaging about 3-4 hours of sleep a night this week. This morning we were supposed to have a session at 7:30am when the sun came up! So I decided to do something unthinkably out of character, and go to bed before midnight. Of course, that means that I woke up around 2:30am feeling like I had just taken a nap and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I was awake for the whole thing.
At first, I thought it was just a tremor. Honestly, up until this point, I’ve slept through almost all of the tremors that have been strong enough to be felt. But the tremor felt strong so I started trying to wake up Seba.
“Seba, Seba…Seba, Seba…Seba!”
He wasn’t waking up, and all of a sudden the earthquake was so strong that the house was completely rocking and I heard cement and glass smashing to the ground. That was when I started to realize it wasn’t a tremor.
“Seba!!! ES UNO GRANDE!!!” or, “Seba!!! IT’S A BIG ONE!!!”
At that point we both got out of bed to try and go out into the patio so the house wouldn’t collapse on our heads. The fan had fallen over though and the cord was blocking the door, along with a piece of furniture that had shifted. Standing there, I felt like there was an ocean moving under the Earth, I could feel the ground move me as if I were riding a wave. We couldn’t get out the door so Seba shouted at me to get under a doorframe. Me, being the prepared little Gringa that I am, had just happened to read an Earthquake survival guide after Haiti. In it, it said that almost all the people who had been found alive were crouched next to large pieces of furniture, like the bed or a dresser, because that way when the ceiling falls, it hits the furniture and then a little triangle pocket of space is created next to it. So yelled back, “No! Remember the guide?”
Then it stopped. And Seba, being the prepared little Chilean that he is, found his flashlight, with batteries in it and everything, and turned it on right away. We ran to Seba’s parents room, and the Earth was still moving, but now it was like surfing a much smaller wave. Actually, I just felt really drunk, like I was about to fall over.
His parents were fine, just shaken. Seba’s Mom and I sat on the bed, while Seba and his Dad went upstairs to check on Tia Pacha, who lives with us. They walked away with the flashlight, leaving us in complete darkness, because at this point, the entire city of Santiago was without power. We could hear their feet crunching over broken glass through the kitchen and the living room, and at that moment, I got really scared. Up until that point pure adrenaline had kicked in and I’d felt very little fear. But sitting there alone in the dark and silence — that was terrifying.
The silence lasted for maybe two minutes, but I realized how odd of a sound that was. Santiago is never completely silent, there are always cars driving by, honking, busses passing, drunk people on the streets. The two minutes without those comforting noises felt like forever. And then one ambulance’s cries broke the silence. And then another, and another. We could hear cars moving again and sirens, a lot of sirens.
Seba and his Dad came back. We sat there with his parents a little while longer and then decided to try and go back to sleep. Laying there, aftershocks kept coming and some of them felt pretty big, and lasted quite a while. About two hours (or maybe less?) after the quake hit, the power came back on. Since we still weren’t sleeping, we got back up to go see if the news was on. MAD kudos to TVN. All the other channels were dead, but they had a newsgirl who looked like she had just rolled out of bed, no makeup on, wearing a crooked shirt, broadcasting the news as it came in. At first it was reassuring. One dead. Two dead. Five dead. We didn’t think it was that bad. They didn’t have their full video teams on the street and everything was still dark in most places, but eventually images started coming in — a church entirely caved in, a highway that fell. Thank goodness this happened at night and that people weren’t out on the streets driving. The number of casualties would have been far higher.
On CNN they say that the Earthquake was an 8.8 and that 122 people are dead. I hope that number doesn’t get much higher.
Aside from mad kudos to TVN, mad kudos to the entire country of Chile! Santiago has been in chaos, but at least it’s been a relatively organized chaos. The power came back on quickly. President Bachelet was up and in the main offices of the earthquake experts by the time the news was broadcasting, and less than three hours after the quake hit, she was in a meeting with her disaster relief team. Roads are now safe(r) to transit. I feel like we’re in good hands here.
February 25, 2010
The other day, someone innocently asked, “What happened to your knees?”
That question catches me off guard every time. The accident was probably the biggest thing that ever happened to me in terms of major life markers so I forget that not everybody I’ve met recently knows about it. That’s weird to me. When I go back home and see people that I was close to back in the day, and they don’t know, I want to get up and shout, “Do you know what happened to me? I could have died! Can’t you FEEL how different life is is?” But life really isn’t that different. Not for anyone but me, not even for Seba.
For me though, the accident crosses my mind at least once a day. I’m not saying I sit at home and dwell on it or walking around like a loony thanking my lucky stars and screaming. It’s just always there in the back of my mind — wondering if I’ll ever be able to drive by that corner without seeing myself laying on the street bleeding, wondering if I’ll have knee problems when I’m older, wondering if I’ll ever get skinny again, wondering if the allergic reaction that started with the bandages on my knees will ever stop, wondering if I’ll ever go back to not knowing how good it feels to exist and keep existing.
The funny thing, is that I don’t even think my scars are that bad. If I saw them on somebody else’s knees, I think I would assume they had a bicycle or rollerblading accident. I don’t mind people asking though. I like seeing the look on people’s faces when I tell them how far in the air I flew. And I like being reminded that I’m lucky to be alive. I’m lucky to have fallen into a career as a wedding photographer, which I absolutely love. I’m lucky to be married to a guy that I’m crazy about. I’m lucky to be able to travel. I’m lucky, I really am.
Alright, I’m done being a cornball. Carry on.
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