The High Price of Paradise

So about 2 weeks ago we had a large earthquake. A few have asked my experiences about it and I thought I'd share. 3 days before the earthquake, Andrew and I had driven east to Sumner to check out the beach and a specific surfing spot called Taylor's Mistake. It was absolutely awesome, Sumner was so beautiful and Taylor's mistake was a beautiful little surfing beach. The sand on the beach felt silky because I think it was mostly made out of volcanic ash. It was the softest sand I'd ever felt. The reasons for checking it out were 2 fold: surfing, and an eventual place to live.

Ever since the earthquake in September I have been mindful of the fact there could be another, or even just large aftershocks. I mentioned to Andrew that I didn't know how safe Sumner would be considering it was on the side of a huge cliff (an extinct Volcano) and should there be an earthquake or even a landslide, it could prove quite dangerous. Little did I know 3 days later there would be a devastating earthquake.

The day of the earthquake was pretty much like any other. I made Logan some scrambled eggs for breakfast while Andrew was in his second day of classes. Andrew came home about 12:10pm from class for some lunch and had a seminar at 2pm he had to attend. We had some leftover pizza and fed Logan some, while Fox was just lying awake babbling in his cot in the living room. The pizza was not enough for all of us, so Andrew went to heat up some leftover steak pie. He began microwaving it. I was sitting at the dining table and Logan was playing with some toys on the floor. Then I started to hear the walls rattling and I knew it was an aftershock. The rattling was similar to how the earthquake in Toronto was. But that was just how the earthquake here began. I knew aftershocks only last a few seconds but when the rattling started me and Andrew looked at each other knowing it was an aftershock. But at about second 2 when it didn't stop and started getting louder, I instinctively jumped out of my seat, ran to Logan and threw us under a table while screaming at Andrew "Grab the baby, grab the baby!". It took Andrew a while to grab Fox, for one he was very confused about what was going on, and two he couldn't easily get to Fox because by the time he began to try to run to him the ground was shaking so violently you couldn't walk across the room. He did after about 5 seconds grab Fox and joined me under the table.

The rumbling got louder and the shaking was so violent that chairs were bouncing across the room, my bike was bouncing across the room, water from the sink was flying into the air and all over our floor. The sounds was absolutely terrifying. It sounded like thunder mixed with a jackhammer that was just constant. Yes our building didn't collapse, but I am not exaggerating when I say it felt like it was going to. The floor just felt like it was going to snap. It was absolutely terrifying. I have never had that much adrenaline pumping through my body and it was a terrible feeling. The quake lasted about 30 seconds, a very very long 30 seconds, especially because we couldn't get out of our flat. The stair case was swaying so much I don't think I could have made it down it by myself let alone with a baby or toddler in my arms.

Once it stopped we rushed outside and stayed there for a while. I knew that this wasn't just an aftershock but I had no idea how big it had been or how devastating it was. We went back inside after 10 minutes thinking it was over and another big aftershock happened, and I said to Andrew we're getting out of here. At this point there was no power, phone lines, water anything. We decided to go for a walk because I was in complete shock, physically and emotionally. We saw collapsed roofs and all kinds of collapsed smaller structures. We began to see Liquifaction rising from the ground. As we walked through a park another huge aftershock happened. Being outside with that magnitude of force was so unsettling. It was so strong that it threw some school children to the ground and the whole ground just rumbled. It was awful. We were dodging falling glass from lights in the park and trying to keep Logan calm.

I didn't feel comfortable going back to our flat so we walked over to this pastor's house we had met 2 days earlier. His family was so kind and immediately took us into the backyard and we just hung out with their family and another Pastor's family from the church we had gone to 2 days earlier. They were so incredibly kind and it felt so good just to be with people at that moment, especially people of faith who we could pray with. It was also really calming watching all of our children play together and laughing like nothing happened. They were all so happy and just being children and having fun and it helped me calm down a bit. Although I began to calm emotionally, physically my legs felt like jello and I still had mass amounts of adrenaline running through my body. I tried to get calls out to our family, but everything was down, payphones, everything.

Luckily I had my new Ipod Nano which I made Andrew buy me just for the radio feature on it (I sold my old one just to buy the new one only because of the radio). We began to listen to the radio and had no idea the earthquake had been so damaging. We were hoping that nobody had died, but as soon as we heard buildings had collapsed downtown, we knew. The city at that point was just chaos.

The next day I told Andrew we had to leave at least for a few days. We left and stayed with some wonderful families who took us in and housed and fed us just because they wanted to help get out for a few days to calm down. Kiwi's are the friendliest people and genuinely kind.

Some people have not realized the magnitude of devastation that this quake has caused the city. It is in absolute ruins. Some areas worse than others, some people have lost absolutely everything. It's just horrible. I know our house didn't collapse and we are very fortunate for our lives and our belongings, but I am still very scared for our kids. It takes nothing to hurt a child in an earthquake like that. A poor 8 month old lost his life because a tv fell on him and broke his neck. Yes our house didn't collapse, but this child only lived a few blocks from our house. It could have been our child. It's absolutely heartbreaking.

Do we really trust in God? It is so easy to say and believe you trust God until you live through something like this. God doesn't discriminate based on money, race, age, etc...and we as Christians say we don't either but is that really true? We try to do the best for our kids so we feel like we take care of them. We buy them warm boots, send them to good schools, we try to do our best. We think we are in control and are doing the best we can for our children. Then an earthquake happens and instantly many lives are lost, and it didn't discriminate at all. Rich, poor, young, old, black, white....every group had lives lost. We aren't in control at all of our children or their safety. We can do our best but in the end it's completely beyond our control. Most people will say "Yea we know God is in control and we aren't" but they don't actually know what that means. I used to think I knew that. Now I realize I didn't really KNOW that until I watched things and people destroyed around me and realized how easily my whole family could be taken from me. As I wrote that another large aftershock happened and I jumped out of my chair. I hate this feeling.

I want to trust in God, trust him with my safety and trust that He can get me or my family through anything should anything happen to any one of us or all of us...but right now it's so much easier said than done. I definitely need some words of encouragement. I don't know how to feel calm or safe in this situation and with all these aftershocks. I need peace, the kind that God can only give. Prayer would also be appreciated for us as well as the city.

I don't ever want to have to go through that again. I didn't realize Christchurch would cost so much.

On a lighter note, the price of paradise is high in other ways as well! I had prepared myself for the cost of living to be higher than in Canada, but I didn't realize how high. I knew some things would be more but not everything. for example, Fox everynight has a stuffy nose which wakes him up (this has been going on for months now). When we were living with Bonnie and Peter we used a humidifier to help keep his nose running at night so he could breathe. The problem continues here, so we decided we have to buy a humidifier because he was waking up multiple times at night every night. Easy task right? Find a humidifier? Wrong!

We called about 20 different stores with absolutely no luck. Half of the people couldn't even understand what we would want with a humidifier. Finally we found a pharmacy that had 1 left. We jumped in the car and drove there only to find it was the Vicks Vaporizer which is the worst designed humidifier I have ever seen and so cheaply made....with a price tag of $112NZD. What is going on?! We had no choice but to bite the bullet and buy one, but I am still so angry about it.

Another example. I am currently still breastfeeding Fox, and let's just say it hasn't been going great and I needed to buy some Lanolin desperately. In Canada, you can buy a massive tube of Lanolin for like $10. We went to the pharmacy and I got the tiniest tube I have ever seen of it for $14. But Lanolin is made from Sheep....so shouldn't it be cheap here with all their mass amounts of sheep? Of course not! Every sheep related product (including lamb meat) is insanely priced.

We also just bought a cheese grater...after looking around extensively we had to buy a $12 cheese grater that is sub-par quality to Dollarama's. I don't know how we are going to survive here financially. Once our basic costs are covered, I guess it will start to become better but until then my eyes pop open at every receipt I see. I consider myself thrifty and I have always been really good with money and finding deals and buying used but I have no idea what to do here. The used market isn't great, I can't find most stuff on it although I have found some. And the deals/sales are so rare! *sigh*

On a happier note, here is Logan riding a little tricycle type thing we bought her (and yes I got a good deal on this finally, lol). She loves it :)