Our Tsunami Tstory.

8 full hours of sleep.
1 refreshing shower.
2 phone calls this morning from Peace Corps Palau and Peace Corps Micronesia, respectively, just checking in to verify our whereabouts.

so we're all good.
all clear.
just unpredictable tides for the next few days, so no water activities allowed. no problem there.

::sigh of relief::

Now, I’m ready to tell the whole story.

To begin, a little back story.
Our safety/security director for Micronesia is on top of her game. We get emails in all red and full of capital letters if the tide is extra high in Kosrae (roughly, the same distance between L.A. and Philadelphia). She stays well-connected to all her contacts at the weather service in Hawaii, FSM and Palau, and she personally knows the U.S. Coast Guard officers that would do all the Peace Corps evacuating, if the need arose. As you may know from my previous posts, there are a lot of shenanigans that happen with the Peace Corps staff, but she doesn’t participate. Also ... I wouldn't want to cross her because I think she could break my legs just by looking at me the wrong way. I suspect these last two sentences might be related.

When the first earthquake hit Japan (earlier this week), Nick and I were at the elementary school. It was lunchtime and CNN was on in the teacher's lounge. It was breaking news, so they said they were awaiting the tsunami warnings. Since we weren't at home we thought it was probably a good idea just to check in with our field office in Koror to let them know they should call Nick and I at the elementary school if there were any instructions. We laughed and said, "How many caps-lock all-red-text emails do you think we have from Emy (our Safety/Security Officer) already?" Nick guessed about eight. I guessed six. But the Internet at the school is so slow, so we thought it was still the best idea to call Koror – just in case.

The response from Koror was, "What earthquake?" We weren't terribly surprised because, like I said, it was breaking news. So Nick told the staff in Palau what was going on and they said they would check in with Emy to see what was happening. They called back in about three minutes and said, "YOU BEAT EMY!!!" They were so excited that they called her before she had received any news – they looked like they were super informed. No one EVER beats Emy to the weather. She checked and said there were no warnings for our area, so everything was fine. They were all laughing. (But we did point out that we are RIGHT on the beach, so we'd like to get one of the FIRST phone calls in the event that we need to evacuate.)

Then, yesterday ...

We both had REALLY long days. My grades were due and all my files vanished. My memory stick has a virus that turned all the files into shortcuts. So I had worked for two full 8-hour days fixing my grading spreadsheet, and then the day that everything was due I couldn't open anything. AHHH! Lesson #1: Do not rely on jump drives when in developing countries without proper virus scan software. Lesson #2: Record all your grades on paper and THEN transfer to a spreadsheet. Luckily, I had done that for three-quarters of the semester. So, I spent the whole day creating a brand new (simplified) spreadsheet at the library in the elementary school.

Nick was informed Thursday afternoon that there would be no classes on Friday. (Huh?!) The principal wanted all the students working on their science fair projects. (Everyone turn and look at Nick.) So Nick spent the whole day in the library trying to get the students ready for their science fair projects. He showed INFINITE patience. I was VERY impressed. I think he had to explain what a hypothesis was at least 10 times during the day... which is NOT a good sign the Friday before the science fair project is due (on Monday). I can't even tell you how many times I heard him say, "No, you cannot copy the experiment out of the book. Start over." And alternately, "No, you cannot GUESS what happens in a science experiment. You have to DO the experiment." There were teachers just chilling out in the library, while Nick was sitting there helping eight or nine students at a time. He was ready to kill them – the teachers, that is. I couldn't believe he didn't. I think that I might've.

So we had just arrived home from school and I went to make the final printout of my grades. But someone else was using the Internet, so I couldn't get the file that I emailed to myself. When I got back to our house, I had barely sat myself down when the phone rang and Mrs. Taniyaola said that it was Pohnpei calling. Nick leaped out of his chair, looked at me and mouthed the word "Pohnpei?!" and was at the phone in the house next door in about five giant Nick-steps. When he hung up he told the principal to turn on the news, there was a tsunami warning for Palau and we had instructions to move to higher ground immediately.

They told us during training that typically Peace Corps volunteers are the first ones to find out what is happening in emergency situations, and to get instructions on what to do. And that's exactly how it happened. We informed the school and community.

We already have an emergency kit packed. Peace Corps gave us a list during training and, being good little (read: paranoid) volunteers, we put it all together in one of our "dry bags," so that we could grab and go. So, we filled up two 1-gallon water jugs and let our host-mother know what was going on, and where we were going. It was also the first that she heard of the news. As we walked along the beach toward the hill, we told all the kids who were still out playing that they should go home to their parents. We got all our stuff up to the top of the hill and synchronized our watches (not really, ha ... uh, but only because they were already in sync. paranoid, remember?). Once we got everything settled at our higher-ground spot, Nick went back down to Bethania (we knew we had plenty of time) to help the principal get all the girls ready and load the van with clean drinking water and a suitcase for each girl. He came back dripping with sweat, his clothes were soaked through. (Plenty hard works.) But he was back safely.

Nick found a place to get reception on the shortwave radio. We chatted with the other teachers and staff, the students posed for a million pictures with us ... until dark. Then everyone got a straw mat and lay down to wait for the "all clear." But the photos continued! I'm sure I have retinal damage from the flashes in the dark. The girls sang songs and played guitar and ukulele. It was very kumbayah. Overall, it felt like a tornado warning to me ... games, singing, chatting with neighbors that you don't normally, etc. etc. But it was much more pleasant because you're not in a dark basement underground, you're on top of a beautiful mountain under the palm trees and stars with a cool breeze, sitting next to an ancient stone path knowing that hundreds of people have done this before you, for centuries.

We heard over the shortwave radio that the warnings were extended for Guam, so we knew we were going to be there a loooooooong time. And then we ran out of English broadcasts. So we had to wait for the governor to come up and tell us when it was safe to go back home. Nick and I weren't thrilled with that plan because we weren't entirely sure he would remember to tell us. Luckily, the principal had his cell phone with him and was getting reception, so he was calling the weather center repeatedly for all the latest info.

Then at about 2am it started raining. We made a mad dash to get all the electronics into one of the dry bags and we pack up all our things so that when the “all clear” came, we would be ready to move out. Then it stopped raining. So we rested on our mat again. And then it started raining again. At that point, the principal called the weather service and said, (I’m paraphrasing) "Listen, I'm not dealing with 70 whining wet teenage girls and all of their soaked belongings, if you're just playing it extra safe right now." So they said it was fine for us to go back home and they took down his contact numbers. They told him there were eight large rogue waves that they were monitoring but said that at that point they looked like they were subsiding -- but if anything changed they would contact him.

When we got back here to Bethania we dropped our stuff in the living room and I started digging through my backpack for my keys. Seeing me take things out of my backpack, Nick yelled at me to stop unpacking our stuff. I said, "Silly goose ... I’m getting my keys to the computer lab. I’m going to let our mothers know what's going on!" (Okay, I might not have said "silly goose.") While we were up on the hill, I had been imagining our mothers waking up, turning on the news and then having a panic attack. (They confirmed later that this is exactly what happened.) And what’s worse was that there was no way for us to let them know what was going on. So, we just had to trust that the Peace Corps would have info on the website or the emergency numbers and leave it at that. I think I was far more worried about our friends and family worrying, than I was worried for us. So the minute we got back I came straight over here to the computer lab, as fast as I could, and beat all the other teachers to the internet.

But ... no dial tone.
grrrrrrr!

I checked the phone lines and they were fine. So that meant that in her haste to leave, the computer teacher left her computer signed online in the computer lab next door ... which was locked. We stood on the office furniture to double-check the wiring (that hangs from the ceiling) to make sure it wasn't fixable from within the teacher's computer room, but it wasn't. So we recruited one of the girls to come into the teacher's computer room. On the wall that separates the two rooms, there's a foot and a half of space at the top of the wall, between the wall and the ceiling. So she climbed a bookshelf, boosted by the teachers, and slipped over the top of the wall into the computer lab next door. She signed off the computer and freed the internet.

Success!!!

After I sent our mothers a “we’re safe!” e-mail and went back home, we both felt SO much better. We collapsed in bed, wearing our clothes (still paranoid), and slept until 10am. I'm SO glad that we didn't have to get up again in the middle of the night. One evacuation was plenty for the day.

Special thanks to friends and family who gifted us ...
The shortwave radio.
The water purifying kit.
The headlamp.
And also for the hammock (which we now realize should be added to our emergency kit).

That was our adventure.

We're glad it's over. We're sorry that it worried our friends and family so much. We're happy that it was as uneventful as it was. On the bright side, it was a lovely evening listening to the girls play guitar and ukulele and sing songs. And the little kids thought it was party time – all fun and games. So, all-in-all we had a half-pleasant half of a night half-sleeping under the stars on half of a woven mat.

And today ... we're on to the next chapter.
What awaits?