Two of the Hardest Things

There were two things I was unprepared for when we arrived. The cost of living (people said it was expensive but that we could make it work...I didn't realize that meant paycheck to paycheck living and major cutbacks to lifestyle) and the amount of destruction still left by the quake. There were two large quakes, the first was Nov 2010 and the second was Feb 2011. So we are coming up to 3 years since the quakes and there is still so much damage. It isn't like Haiti or even some of the quakes in China, because it wasn't that large of a quake, but it still did so much damage that there are signs of it EVERYWHERE! It is so sad!!! These are just a very few pics that I have taken. The others were on my camera that I lost last week :(. The part that freaks me out is the shipping containers they use to hold up rubble! They are weighted and anchored, but in my non engineering mind I can't imagine that it is safe for them to be next to roads! Sometimes you are at lights and there are four of them stacked up next to you with a half collapsed building next two it. It FREAKS me out!! We have felt three quakes since being here and have had no visible damage to our place and none of the shipping containers have crushed any cars so that is good news!

Before the quake obviously.

Now

There are multiple houses that have split in half or thirds and the other half is at the bottom of the cliff,  behind the shipping containers.