photo by Nili Larish

Location:
Peru, Pacific Coast South of Lima, Pisco

earthquake, pisco, newspapers

By Nili Larish

Before the earthquake, sandboards dragging behind us, hands shielding sensitive eyes, we climb up large, unforgiving dunes, the glittering oasis of Ica below us. At the top we wax our boards, take deep breaths, and go flying, arms akimbo, sand in our ears and laughing, hysterical mouths. We are high on adrenaline, and climb back to the sun-kissed top again and again.

Before the earthquake, on a clear and breezy evening on the beachfront in Pisco, we sit on the boardwalk with a traveling artisan named Hugo, who teaches us how to make bracelets out of string and earrings out of wire, and when we waste his materials on ugly, uneven jewelry, he smiles at us with the patience of a Buddhist or a parent, unfazed.

Before the earthquake, we take a tour of the Paracas Islands, the “poor man’s Galapagos,” wildly snapping photos of seals, of flamingoes, and in the evening go dancing with Manuel, who works at our hostel, and his friend, who is also named Manuel. The Manuels (one tall with spiky hair, the other short with bad skin) show us how to Salsa, give us cigarettes, try to kiss us. We lead them on coldheartedly and laugh about it later.

After the earthquake, from my home in New York (bags unpacked, separated from my travel partner) I read in the Washington Post of Pisco Mayor Juan Mendoza saying, "The dead are scattered by the dozens on the streets. We don't have lights, water, communications. Most houses have fallen. Churches, stores, hotels -- everything is destroyed." In Chincha, a nearby town I had slept in for one evening, a jailhouse had collapsed, setting free over 600 prisoners, of which only 20 had been found and rearrested. In Pisco, a Catholic church had crumbled during Mass, with 200 people inside of it. 60 bodies were recovered and laid out in the city’s plaza, the AP reported. In the Telegraph, a survivor a few years older than me is quoted as saying, “The earth moved differently this time. It made waves and the earth was like jelly.”

Several headlines read “Two Minutes of Terror.” I think of those two minutes, and conjure up the Manuels, who may no longer be taking out Gringas in the hopes of scoring, I imagine flamingoes flapping wildly, seals’ slow-moving bodies unreactive to the strangeness underfoot, Hugo who might not have left the peaceful town of Pisco before the land moved like water, the dunes collapsing, enveloping Ica with powdery sand, its inhabitants, the lucky ones, choking on granules, eyes tearing and burning. The only ones weeping for joy are the surviving convicts, who are happy to be free even if everything around them has turned to rubble and dust.

And me, unscathed me, I look through photos of faces and places that are no doubt mangled and unrecognizable now, my goofy grin, big white teeth, shining in every snapshot.