So tonight began like any other night. I had dinner with two of the other singles, Pamela and Stephanie and afterwards enjoyed good conversation and some Condole cookies. Afterwards I made my way by the Masso's house because I had heard a brief mention earlier in the day regarding some brownies to be baked…and I needed to check to see how the progress was going. The Masso girls were watching Anne of Green Gables 2 (Anne of Avenly?) on the computer and as exciting as that was I was temped onward toward the Myhre's with the promise of an episode of 24. As I was walking there I saw Scott Myhre headed down in the vehicle to Christ's School to pick up his children from clubs that evening, so I hopped in the car to join him. We sat in the car next to the football (soccer to you Americans) field and shot the breeze while we waited for the power to run out and subsequently clubs to end (you know you are at a school in Bundibugyo when something doesn't end at a certain time, but rather when the solar batteries die). We loaded the kids up and headed back up. When we entered the house the kids gave Scott and Jennifer a rundown of clubs which included a five minute math quiz courtesy of Luke Myhre (they had discussed some tricky math problems in his club and he wanted to test our wits…we were pretty unsuccessful, but hey we were trying to do it in our heads). Then began the tornado that is called: Myhre children getting ready for bed. It's quite an exhausting experience for an observer and I have no idea how Scott and Jennifer do it day after day. It's like they are conductors orchestrating a symphony of activity. And somehow after fifteen minutes and multiple threats of revoking Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King viewing privileges the next night everyone was ready for bed.
Somewhere in the middle of this whole process I stole away to the restroom to - as they say here - take a short call. Suddenly I started feeling a bit woozy. I was standing there looking at the back of the toilet and shapes seemed to deform and everything seemed close and far away at the same time and the whole room seemed to skew. It felt as if I was standing – yet not really standing at the same time. For a moment I thought I was loosing it and then I realized that everything WAS close and far away at the same time, that shapes were really deforming, and that the whole room was skewing and that I was in the middle of an earthquake. At that moment there was this unexplainable feeling – I was frozen in time. Only when I heard Scott shout: "Everyone out of the house!" did I realize that I was in any significant danger. I shut off midstream and bolted out of the house. At this point I would like to point out that everything that I intended to go in the toilet did in fact go in the toilet and not say on the wall or floor or my foot and that everything that belonged in my pants was back there by time I joined the Myhre's outside. So while you may now be laughing to yourself about how I one literally peed through my only earthquake experience at least I can say I did it like a champion.
Outside we could hear there entire community abuzz with excitement for about fifteen minutes as the night settled back into an eerie calm. Intellectually we knew that biggest had past any anything else would be something smaller…but it can be really hard to convince yourself of that emotionally when you are in the moment. Let's just say I slept with one eye open.
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