It is 5 a.m., and this time we have not been woken up by a
rooster; there is a huge tropical rainstorm blowing across the campus! The rain
is torrential, and the wind is so strong I can see trees flailing, struggling
to stay upright. Occasionally a crack of lightning illuminates the scene behind
our room, and so far, we can see that our haus kuk is still standing. A huge
branch has fallen just in front of it, but luckily it avoided falling right on
top.
Thunder rumbles overhead, and continues rolling for several
seconds. Sometimes we hear things falling from the trees and hitting the side
of our room. Medium-sized nuts mostly, no coconuts thankfully. Suddenly, a loud
crack wakes anyone who has not woken up already because of the raging storm.
Later when it was light enough, we discovered that two trees behind our dorm
had cracked and fallen over. One fell right on top of two haus kuks and rested
on the dorm roof. Thankfully, the dorm structures had just been reinforced last
year!
At 6 a.m., Eric and I had to go to the kitchen for morning
breakfast duty. By that time, all of the haus kuks but two had fallen over.
Ours was not one of the survivors. There was no light in the kitchen because
the power had gone out and the generator had not been turned on yet. We lit a
fire, cut up bananas, and washed tables in the dark with two flashlights before
the generator came on.
Unfortunately, because it is so wet, the person on fire duty
to heat the showers wasn’t able to get one started. It’s cold showers today!
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