Accommodation?

     When we first arrived in Santiago we were told about earthquakes that happen all the time. We were told that people dont even react to them because they are so frequent. In fact, it isnt even an earthquake till it gets over 7 on the earthquake scale. Everything else is just a temblor.

     We were apartment hunting in the first two weeks, and when on the 7th floor looking at a place, I felt a little dizzy. It was "just a temblor".  All the little shakes we experienced while living in the hospedaje for three months were "just temblors", even though they shook pretty hard. 

     Just after a farewell party for a departing senior missionary couple we were standing and talking to someone when again, I felt dizzy. I felt dizzier than I ever had. The pictures started swaying on the walls, we all sat down and looked at each other, then out the window. A construction crane a block away was bouncing up and down. The hospedaje suffered a large crack across a ten foot wall, just over the bank of windows. It was a 7.2 temblor.

     There have been lots of temblors that have just wiggled the bed a little, like someone getting up in the middle of the night. We just lie there and ride out the experience. Nothing has ever been displaced in our apartment.

     On the end of September, while at work in the office on the 13th floor, we felt the building start to shake a little, but no one reacted. Then it shook harder, then finally the windows began shaking violently. I was a little startled, Jay was very concerned, the people in the office raised their eyebrows. It was a 6.1

     For the past week we have been experiencing little temblors which we hardly reacted to. Jay said he didnt even feel them. Then we learned that one was a 4.5, which seems to me to be pretty big.  Yesterday at home, at 6:45, the building started shaking,but I was playing games on the computer so didnt pay much attention. It actually felt kind of fun: like being gently rocked. It was a 6.1. 

     When you experience something often enough you get used to it and it doesnt even register on your mind. When you wear a watch or a ring for the first time, you feel it, but after a while it doesnt register on your mind. That is called accommodation. I think we are accommodating to earthquakes. Excuse me, I mean temblors.