Hurricane Dean

I'll try to make this brief, but at the same time let you get a good picture of what happened.

Friday night was when we found out that Hurricane Dean was for surely coming our way. We heard taht the eye of the storm was headed straight for us. Becky came back from town and we decided that we would pack up our whole room that night, to be safe. Because if the hurricane did take off our roof we would lose books and other things may be destroyed.

Saturday was a strange day. We waited...and waited. Becky and I moved our belongings down to the office, where it is safe from any damage early Saturday morning.

Then Sunday was the day when teh hurricane was supposed to strike. It was windy that day, but other than that it was a nice day. Everyone on the base came down to the office around 3 in teh afternoon, when the winds really started to pick up.

Before then, Becky adn I had gotten tired of waiting so we made a batch of brownies!!! good times!

By 4 o'clock teh winds had really picked up so we locked ourselves inside the office. We played games and read books until the wind was so bad that it was blowing the rain inside all around the door. There was tons of water coming in under teh door, but it was spraying in at the top too. It was nuts. So while a few of us were mopping up the water there was a huge bang against teh door and window. A metal shingle from teh building across from us had flown off and hit teh office. That's when some people began to get down, realizing now that we might lose some roofs. But we began to sing, adn soon our spirits were lifted! We knew that God was with us!

I went to bed actually early that night. We had all brought mattresses into the office so it was comfy! The next mornign the first person to go outside was Merline at 5 o'clock, so I went out with her to take a look at the damage.

My roof had a few shingles blown off and so the ceiling in two of the rooms fell through, including my room. Which has since been temporarily fixed with ply-wood. The dorms lost part of the roof, the house farther up on teh hill lost about 1/3 of its roof...taht was the worst damage on our base. One tree fell right by teh schooland just missed teh roof! Other roofs which had old shingles on were damaged. I have pictures on my facebook and on blogspot, so you can check those out.

The nearby communities had lots of damage. Alot of roofs are completely gone.

They cut off the power before the hurricane hit. And because some poles and wires are down it's still not back up adn running in my area. Luckily we have gas stoves so we can still cook our food, but it's all non-perishables. There's no running water, so i feel like i'm back in Africa when I have a sponge bath! We work in candle light after dark, but we go to bed early adn get up with teh sun so that we can get as much sunlight as possible. i don't knwo when power will come back, hopefully soon. I will try to get to internet cafes as much as i can until then.

Well that was longer than I thought. That's a good picture of my adventures through a hurricane. Thanks for all of your prayers, adn I'm really sorry I made you all worry so much!