Menchie's Tsunami-Evasive Tactics

A few weeks ago, after the earthquake in Japan, there were tsunami warnings up and down the Pacific coast. Peace Corps decided that those of us living on or near the coast needed to be evacuated temporarily to be safe and avoid the madness.

So on a Friday morning, they sent us the command to get the heck out of dodge, stat. This process is part of the EAP, Emergency Action Plan, that every Peace Corps office in every Peace Corps country has in place for occasions such as September 30, 2010 and also impending tsunamis.

Step 1 of the EAP is the Standfast phase. So we stood fast until we got word that we were a go for Step 2, Consolidation. That's the part where you pack your bag and go to a pre-arranged meeting spot. In this case, our meeting spot was Quito, and guess who made it into my Emergency Action Plan bag???

Clearly I have my priorities in order during an emergency situation. (Turns out the tsunami didn't hit, and we got an all expenses paid trip to the capital, whee!) Here we are hiking in the gigantic wooded Parque Metropolitano.

A trip to Quito would not be complete without a stop at a certain Indian restaurant. This place has become something of a PCV tradition, a tradition into which Menchie has now been summarily inducted.