After another sleepless night Johanneke picked me up and we drove to work. Sleep evaded me because now there was strong wind shaking the house beside the aftershocks, and airplanes thundering over my house as they had changed their landing course due to the storm.
It was nice to talk with Johanneke, compare fears and feelings. We didn’t see lots of damage on the way to work (since it’s mostly sheep paddocks anyway), but part of the road was all bumpy and ripped open in places. Weird.
At work things looked fine. My biggest fear was the plant that Gareth had put on top of the bookshelf just past Friday because he thought it got too much direct sunlight on my desk. I was sure the plant had fallen on top of my computer. I had not. Our books were more chaotic than before on the shelves, some of Gareth’s sample bags had fallen down, interestingly my plastic teacup had fallen off the shelf into a drawer that apparently had opened during the quake and closed again after, because it took me a good while to find my teacup!
Other offices were worse of course, especially those that normally already look as if a nuclear bomb has hit. Lots of broken plant pots, and some offices were inaccessible because large cupboards had toppled over in front of the door. 1 in particular you could only open the door 2 centimeters.
In the labs nothing serious either. 1 broken volumetric flask.
Greenhouses were a bit worse, nothing broken but complete experiments fallen over. When I met Ian he had just put back upright 520 plants in their specific order.
It was wonderful to talk to everyone. We all just talked and talked and talked. Most were fine, although lots of broken chimneys, no power and water etc.
And people were all very sweet to me. Everyone had wanted to call me but no one had my phone number. I had realized that too during the last few days, I did file my number with HR obviously but I never even gave it to Ian. Probably because I was so long without a phone I didn’t think about people would want to call me anyway.
Ian was really sweet too, letting me talk in long rants for a change and feeling sorry for me. He suggested I should drink some wine to unwind haha! And that I should sleep instead of work tomorrow when I told him I would take some work with me. He said I was looking very stressed.
At 10:30 we had a meeting and our big boss talked very sincerely to us. We were to clean up what we could until noon and then go home and not come back until Wednesday to deal with things at home. Then he asked people to write their name if they needed anything or if they could help with anything. It was really all very touching I found, all really looking after the others. He also mentioned us foreigners who had no friends and family here and we could write down our name if we just wanted someone to come over for whatever sort of help.
Talking to the others I was sometimes really surprised. Most people had gone back to bed after the big shake! Most little kids had slept through it, even when lying on the ground beneath daddy after being brusquely taken out of bed. The bigger ones though were still very scared. And most people had at least new cracks in their house. I checked again yesterday and there is nothing with my house although it feels much more unstable now with the wind.
So I send some emails, copied some files to work on at home perhaps, and drove back with Johanneke. Gareth invited us to dinner tonight, so we first went to the supermarket where we also got 6-liter containers of water. We have to boil tapwater now and people are starting to get sick from it we heard on the radio. The next few days a storm that has flooded “our friends across the Tasman” will bring lots of rain and wind, and also snow in the Alps is melting very rapidly at the moment. So there will be large amounts of water coming this way and with riverbeds that have changed course and are still adjusting to their new position they expect floods and more water/sewage problems. It is all so obvious but until you’re part of it you never realize that the actual problems arise much later than the quake itself.
The aftershocks continue. The frequency is going down, more like every two hours instead every 45 minutes now. I just tried to sleep a few hours but when a relatively big one hit again I was wide awake. Starting to wonder if I will ever be able to sleep normally again. I was so tired today that I was never sure whether the earth was really moving or whether I was just dizzy from sleep deprivation. I am getting back my appetite though and in the supermarket, which is a different one from where I usually go, Johanneke put a Dutch raisin bread in my basket saying I should try it. It’s good!
Maybe tomorrow I’ll upload some of my photos. They’re not very spectacular but perhaps that’s good so you can see there’s nothing to worry about!
It was nice to talk with Johanneke, compare fears and feelings. We didn’t see lots of damage on the way to work (since it’s mostly sheep paddocks anyway), but part of the road was all bumpy and ripped open in places. Weird.
At work things looked fine. My biggest fear was the plant that Gareth had put on top of the bookshelf just past Friday because he thought it got too much direct sunlight on my desk. I was sure the plant had fallen on top of my computer. I had not. Our books were more chaotic than before on the shelves, some of Gareth’s sample bags had fallen down, interestingly my plastic teacup had fallen off the shelf into a drawer that apparently had opened during the quake and closed again after, because it took me a good while to find my teacup!
Other offices were worse of course, especially those that normally already look as if a nuclear bomb has hit. Lots of broken plant pots, and some offices were inaccessible because large cupboards had toppled over in front of the door. 1 in particular you could only open the door 2 centimeters.
In the labs nothing serious either. 1 broken volumetric flask.
Greenhouses were a bit worse, nothing broken but complete experiments fallen over. When I met Ian he had just put back upright 520 plants in their specific order.
It was wonderful to talk to everyone. We all just talked and talked and talked. Most were fine, although lots of broken chimneys, no power and water etc.
And people were all very sweet to me. Everyone had wanted to call me but no one had my phone number. I had realized that too during the last few days, I did file my number with HR obviously but I never even gave it to Ian. Probably because I was so long without a phone I didn’t think about people would want to call me anyway.
Ian was really sweet too, letting me talk in long rants for a change and feeling sorry for me. He suggested I should drink some wine to unwind haha! And that I should sleep instead of work tomorrow when I told him I would take some work with me. He said I was looking very stressed.
At 10:30 we had a meeting and our big boss talked very sincerely to us. We were to clean up what we could until noon and then go home and not come back until Wednesday to deal with things at home. Then he asked people to write their name if they needed anything or if they could help with anything. It was really all very touching I found, all really looking after the others. He also mentioned us foreigners who had no friends and family here and we could write down our name if we just wanted someone to come over for whatever sort of help.
Talking to the others I was sometimes really surprised. Most people had gone back to bed after the big shake! Most little kids had slept through it, even when lying on the ground beneath daddy after being brusquely taken out of bed. The bigger ones though were still very scared. And most people had at least new cracks in their house. I checked again yesterday and there is nothing with my house although it feels much more unstable now with the wind.
So I send some emails, copied some files to work on at home perhaps, and drove back with Johanneke. Gareth invited us to dinner tonight, so we first went to the supermarket where we also got 6-liter containers of water. We have to boil tapwater now and people are starting to get sick from it we heard on the radio. The next few days a storm that has flooded “our friends across the Tasman” will bring lots of rain and wind, and also snow in the Alps is melting very rapidly at the moment. So there will be large amounts of water coming this way and with riverbeds that have changed course and are still adjusting to their new position they expect floods and more water/sewage problems. It is all so obvious but until you’re part of it you never realize that the actual problems arise much later than the quake itself.
The aftershocks continue. The frequency is going down, more like every two hours instead every 45 minutes now. I just tried to sleep a few hours but when a relatively big one hit again I was wide awake. Starting to wonder if I will ever be able to sleep normally again. I was so tired today that I was never sure whether the earth was really moving or whether I was just dizzy from sleep deprivation. I am getting back my appetite though and in the supermarket, which is a different one from where I usually go, Johanneke put a Dutch raisin bread in my basket saying I should try it. It’s good!
Maybe tomorrow I’ll upload some of my photos. They’re not very spectacular but perhaps that’s good so you can see there’s nothing to worry about!
