El Sismo...

I`m ok...for those of you that have been watching the news, Peru experienced a severe earthquake this week. News on how bad the destruction was was really delayed in getting to me up here...the death toll continues to climb, although they found 2 women alive in the ruins of a collapsed church yesterday. They have determined the magnitude to be an 8.0, which is quite significant as earlier reports had it in the 7`s. The epicenter was apparently in Ica, which is near Pisco. They´re both just over 100 miles south of Lima. It was a holy day for the Catholics, so a lot of people were killed because churches crumbled during the evening services, as the quake hit just before 7 pm. There were two i-to-i volunteers placed in Pisco at the time, who have both been safely evacuated to Lima. Hauntingly enough, the coffee shop they had been in just an hour before the quake completely crumbled to the ground. Another volunteer that I had orientation with who was still in Lima at the time of the quake said that the section of the city she was in was really rockin´and rolling...she was pretty scared, but ok. I guess we had a tsunami warning along the coastal areas as well, which I didn´t know about until later in the week, but that was just put that out there in the event that there was another earthquake or because the aftershocks got to be really high in magnitude...I guess some of the aftershocks actually got up into the 6´s. But I´m completely ok up here, no worries. Thanks for all the emails and people checking in though...I guess when you just hear about there being an earthquake in Peru, and then remember that I´m in Peru...but I´m too far north to have been affected. Read on for my first week in Peru update...