

Just a little update to keep you in your seats a little longer. i am currently running on limited
Internet access so posts may be few and far between.
To follow up on my previous post, it has not been such a great start to the year, the earthquake that struck on the
tuesday 22
nd of
feb has created unstable living and income situations for many people it
christchurch and i am currently 1
among the many. For starters its definitely taken a blow to my study, we had only just started back on the
monday before, and i myself did not have my first lecture
until the
wednesday after, i was however still on campus at the time accompanying my friend to her first lecture on the fifth story of one of the universities buildings. not a fun time i can tell you that much. in the five minutes following the quake i managed to
receive a phone call from mum to say that we no longer had a home to go to. the east and west walls of our old
christchurch building had collapsed inwards with both mum and dad inside. In a crazy mad dash, both myself and my friend got in the car and drove in gridlocked traffic for 2-3 hours on a
quarter of a tank of gas to get to my home. Thankfully everyone was alive, dad managing to get out with only a
severely damaged hand
after the wall collapsed on top of him, but we were all safe. At this point no one really knew that the earthquake had done any really severe damage, with no phone reception and bumper to nose traffic as the only indication that something was wrong, about 3 hours following we finally found out that the inner city was in ruins. with all bridges except one, damaged beyond use we stayed put
until about 6pm that night standing outside our home and then went our
separate ways to find suitable accommodation. it was at that point that my friend also found out that her daughter, who was out of town on a school camp, was coming back into the city, and so with the fuel light indicating empty we drove for 3 hours, through flooding, coned off areas, pot holes, ripped up concrete, and bumper to nose
traffic, to get to the school to pick her up. the next three days we spent together was in a state of limbo without power water, or fuel, and walking was next to impossible because in a typical
christchurch fashion the weather was stinking hot and had turned the silt into dust clouds that you really did not want to be
in hailing with the broken sewer lines contributing to the mini volcanoes. It took at least a week for petrol stations and supermarkets to be somewhat regulated and most on the
eastern side of the city either opened 1-2weeks following o
haven't opened at all due to the damage.
on
tuesday the 8
th of march our home of 15 years was demolished.
my parents are living in a tent in my
uncles back yard, and when
im not staying in his utility room, i am bed hopping with friends.
uni has started a new relaunch programme that was made all of my learning online based.
at least once every few days another recognizable building is demolished and turned into another empty space.
both images provided aren't quite an
accurate rendition of the damage to our building but when and if i can get some better ones ill be sure to post.
TTFN*mock salute*
LBL