After:

Before:

first off, i want to tell you all that i am well and my family is well. our house is fine. we have food. we have electricity and water.
but almolonga is not so fine.

i was laying in bed. 4am. wide awake. hearing the river that was once my street outside my front door. and i got that feeling. like when you stand too long looking out at the ocean. and you realize just how small you are. i felt so small. i kept thinking about how small i am. how it would be so easy for the house to fall into itself and disappear into a pile of rocks...

i made a cup of coffee and sat with Doña Maria... she was so worried because she didn't have any Maseca (powder to make tortillas when there is no electricity to grind your corn). so i said that i'd venture out to buy some. thank god for those boots! it's 8am and five stores later, there's no Maseca to be found. but i did see the destruction all over Almolonga. and it blew my mind. boulders bigger than me. i have no idea where they came from. pickup trucks smashed like matchbox toys the day after christmas.

four children died. they were inside their house when it fell. Efraín, 5; Lesly Marisol, 9; Glendy Maribel, 11, y Marleny López Maxana, 12. how do you process that? to me, it breaks my heart because it's just so preventable. building codes. drainage. that's what kills me.

here are some professional pics of almolonga...