As I enjoyed my last few minutes of divine sleep this
morning, I was rudely awakened by the shaking of my bed and the rattling of the
windows. Now, anybody who knows me knows
that I am NOT a morning person.
Interrupting my sleep in the last few minutes before the alarm sounds
could be hazardous to your health. But,
this morning, at about 5 am, Mother Nature decided I needed assistance getting out
of the bed.
When the bed first started shaking, an earthquake was not
the first thing that came to my mind. As
you all know, we are in the long rainy season.
The thunder and lightning here can be quite vicious, so I attributed the
shaking to lightning hitting the building.
Now, the fact that I didn’t jump up and run for safety speaks volumes
about how living in Kenya has shaped my outlook on things. LOL. Some of you may remember I wrote about
the security wall in my compound being blown up by a lightning strike last
year, so this was not a farfetched notion.
After the first few seconds of shaking, my eyes opened
slightly. I started to wonder if this
was going to be one of those real earthquakes. You know the ones that register
at 8.0 something on the Richter scale. I
remember feeling quite annoyed just thinking I would have to get up and leave
the apartment in my pajamas. As I waited
for the excitement to end, I wondered what I would do to ensure my safety. I had absolutely zero confidence that the
building I resided in would survive a ‘real’ earthquake. The building codes of this fine city have
been the topic of discussion all week.
SMH
 |
| Nairobi at Dawn |
Just as I was about to disrupt a perfectly good sleep, everything
came to a halt. The tremor lasted about
10 to 15 seconds. It seemed like a
really long time. I thought to myself, oh
good now I can go back to sleep. One of
the reasons why I wasn’t too excited about this 4.9 earthquake is because I
read, before I came, that Kenya was prone to minor tremors and earthquakes due
to its proximity to the Rift Valley.
When I finally got up for the day, I started checking the
apartment for signs that an earthquake occurred. There were a few minor cracks in the walls,
but some of them I had seen previously. This
earthquake and last week’s floods got me thinking about what I would do if
there was a real disastrous event. Well,
I purposely didn’t bring anything fancy to Kenya. Over the holidays I took home anything that
had any real value after losing two pairs of shoes and a skirt to the mud. Nothing fancy is really needed here.
My friend Sookie (her
real name is Colleen) asked if they had renter’s insurance here. I had to laugh when I saw the question,
because it wasn’t even a consideration to get any. I’m sure it would be an ordeal trying to get
your money if you had renter’s insurance and something did happen. In a place where you have to go pick up the
police if your house is robbed in order for them to investigate (and you better
have a little something extra), I won’t hold my breath thinking that a bunch of
insurance claims would be honored if my personal belongs were damaged.
Well folks, I’m going to close this out. Join me next week when I will talk about ‘The
Round About.’ It has to be done. See you
back here next week.
Asante Sana,
Della Rochelle
Copyright © 2012 by Della Rochelle Williams
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