Thursday, 6July06

Highlights: small tremblor this morning, welcomed two American students to town

10 minutes before class this morning, the ground gave us a little shake,,, just to remind us that no matter how important we thought the results of the France-Italy game were last night, mother nature still holds the trump cards.

(ah! It’s so good that France won though! Nice work Zidane!)

A woman in the computer room hurdled her desk, launched past me and out the door in about 2 seconds… while I stood there to gauge how big this little earthquake was. I guess that’s the difference between someone who’s lived through a big one (her), and someone who hasn’t (me). The minor quake lasted 5 seconds.

Earthquakes are strange, cool, and scary all at once. This morning felt like the ground under your feet turned into the waves that lap at your feet on the beach. Except with a disturbing grumbling sound that people like me only catch a moment or two after it happened.
After seeing everyone outside & checking that everything was ok, we all laughed. We started class & the day went back to normal- and I would have forgotten there was an earthquake had it not been for a note I wrote myself to tell you about it… (=
This one was reported at 3.6 on the Richter scale. The big one from 27May hit at 6am, lasted 59 seconds, and was a 6.3 magnitude tremblor. My host mom says the ground was shaking so violently, she couldn’t walk straight. So much for gentle waves lapping at your feet.

Today, 3 American students from a different summer studies program in Manado (north Sulawesi) came to Yogyakarta for a week long visit. One is studying post-disaster reconstruction, and the others- I forget…

I met up with them after Gamelan class today. We got them established with Marty’s host family, who had 2 extra rooms open for rent ($30 for the week, with breakfast). And then had dinner in the Malioboro part of town.

This was my 2nd time down there,, and it’s much livelier there than up north where I usually hang my hat. Mental note.