So last night we awoke to our entire room shaking and quickly realized there was an earthquake happening.  After about thirty seconds, the shaking stopped and the electricity was out, followed by lots of dogs barking and some sirens.   Our gracious host family came out to check on us and assured us that it was an earthquake, but that we were now safe.  It ended up being about 4.7 on the Richter scale (which goes up to ten and each level is ten times stronger than the one before), so ours was not severe.   The epicenter was right in the city we are staying on the outskirts of, so that was why we felt it so much.

In retrospect, we realized that our reactions were not really ideal, as we all just stayed put, rather than moving outdoors; however, we did put our shoes and flashlights by the door as a precaution for future incidents, which we hopefully won’t need and made a lot of horrible earthquake jokes as we got ready for the day 🙂  Having lost some sleep, we are tired as we eat our delicious, home cooked breakfast this morning, but looking forward to another day of volunteering and a possible visit to some hot springs this afternoon.