This morning around 3:30 a.m. I was woken up from my sleep by some shaking and rattling. Once I realized we were having an earthquake, I started to get up to go under the door or table outside of my room as it stopped. It's the second one I've experienced while I've been here. I haven't heard of any damage from it.
Guatemala is EXTREMELY geologically active and here the land seems to have a mind of it's own. I was reminded of this at the Avivara office today where I saw some disturbingly tragic photos of the dead being pulled out of the mud after the mudslide in San Miguel Escobar, the area I volunteered in a few weeks back. Those pictures were very emotionally powerful and stuck with me the rest of the day.
One of the things that has surprised me the most about Guatemala is how mountainous the terrain is. In this country you're either thousands of feet up or in a small valley looking thousands of feet up. Volcanoes can be seen from practically everywhere. There are few opportunities to build a house or live in a village that is not vulnerable to mudslides and the roads are always vulnerable (and have slides often) because the hillsides along the roads are not reinforced the way they are in the states.
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