Costa Rica (Part 1)

After two years in Ecuador, you would think that I have had my fill of surprises and adventure. On January 5, 2009 I set out for Costa Rica with 12 other students and a professor from Bridgewater College. We would be studying the Spanish language at IPEE (a Costa Rican institute for language) and travelling around the country learning about the culture. We each were placed with Costa Rican host families for our duration and our 4^th day in the country, we set out for a day tour to different places. We woke up early to get on our tour bus and headed to a coffee plantation, Poas volcano nestled within cloud forests, and then La Paz waterfalls which also had a several animal exhibits to observe. Afterwards, we planned to take a boat ride in the rainforest to see animals in the wild. However, that day, Thursday January 8^th there was a 6.2 earthquake in Costa Rica. The epicenter was about 10 km east of Volcan Poas.

I don´t even know where to begin. When I start to remember what happened and how it happened my mind goes so fast that my hand cannot write nor are there words enough to fully express how I felt or what went through my mind. As we look back we can see many things to be thankful for and dare I say ¨happy¨moments. I don´t believe in coincidence or chance. I believe that God is in control and although I often don´t understand His plans I believe that there are plans. We met at IPEE at 6:00 am to get on a little tour bus and see several different places. When the earthquake happened at 1:21 PM, we were at La Paz (the peace) waterfalls, an ironic name considering everything that happened. The exact location of where everyone was standing was a blessing in disguise. Most were on the concrete stairs with railing on one side and the mountain on the other. We had just passed the first magnificent waterfall. Moments earlier we had stood on a bridge admiring its beauty and some had stood on the water´s edge skipping rocks. When the earthquake hit, the land on the sides of the waterfall went crashing into the water, turning all the water brown from the dirt in an instant. I was on the stairs or steps and when the ground began to shake my first thought was that someone behind me was trying to play a joke on us and was shaking it, but it was too large of a shake and the falling debris of rocks and trees all around us pushed our minds into survival gear. Our guide Ricky called for all of us to move up as quickly as possible and to stay together and stay calm. I will not forget seeing everyone´s faces as the ground shook and we grabbed onto anything “solid” next to us. After the first big quake my body was shaking and my legs felt like jello. I couldn´t tell if the earth still shook or if it was just me. Most of the girls of our group were in the front of our line. Ricky tried to lead us but trails were being blocked by fallen trees. All of us were calling out to each other to watch out for this branch or watch out for falling rock. Ricky yelled to us that if it tremored again to get down and next to the side of the trail by the mountain and cover our heads. Perhaps even scarier than the first quake was when water started coming down the trail we were following. Would a big burst of water break through and wipe us all out? A Costa Rican man named Jose came and was clearing a path for us with his machete. Marieke a girl from our group started having a panic attack and was on the ground. We called for Fleis, our professor, to come. Everyone reacted differently to the stress. Two of the guys in our group had pulled out cigarettes as we made our way, trying to calm their nerves. When there were other smaller tremors my heart leapt and I gasped. It was as if everyone took a collective sigh as if to hold our breath. I constantly said “It´s ok. Stay calm. It´s gonna be ok.” I said it more for myself than for others. We all encouraged each other and all I cared about was all of us getting out together safely. By the grace of God we arrived back at our starting point from the hike. At first I felt such a huge sigh of relief that we had made it out. Then as I looked around and saw the destruction of the buildings and the places that we had just been only minutes before torn up and broken, I felt fear. It was still not safe and we were still trying to escape. Other tourist were walking or running around. Many were taking pictures, although who can blame them, without a picture I may believe it never happened and it’s all a bad dream. The entire experience was so surreal. Even now as I sit in bed with a bathroom around the corner and clean clothes I wonder did all that really happen, the aches in my body, the sunburn on my face, the scratches on my legs, they all tell me it was real.

Psalms 46:1-3
God is a safe place to hide, ready to help when we need him.
We stand fearless at the cliff-edge of doom, courageous in seastorm and earthquake
Before the rush and roar of oceans, the tremors that shift mountains.
Jacob-wrestling God fights for us, God of Angel Armies protects us.

If only that were the end of the story.
If only our adventure had ended there, how lovely it would be.
Stay tuned for what followed...

These are some websites with links to newspaper articles about the earthquake:
http://insidecostarica.com/dailynews/2009/january/10/nac02.htm
http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre5086pi-us-costarica-quake/
http://www.costaricapages.com/blog/costa-rica-news/tourists-earthquake/1789