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IV - THE YEAR 1910 (1)
Sionian Letters from San José 1910
You know perhaps that our privileged land of Costa Rica
is in possession of 12 volcanoes, whose strange names can be proudly reeled off
to you by the tiniest children, as one of the glories of their country. Last
February one of these volcanoes, the POAS, erupted slightly, giving off a rain
of ashes.
During the night of 12-13 April, we were suddenly awoken by the powerful tremor of an earthquake, but this was nothing new. The mistress in each of the dormitories calmed her children, and told them to go back to sleep. But a second tremor, on the contrary, obliged us to make them get up, and thank goodness we did, for almost immediately a third one, extremely violent, was the signal to rush down from the dormitories into the recreation yards. Just imagine, dear Mothers and Sisters, about sixty children, some of them very tiny, scantily dressed in petticoats and wrapped up in blankets grabbed from their beds, racing down the stairs, amid cries of terror. We spent the night, both Sisters and children, in the yards and gardens, with renewed tremors nearly every quarter of an hour.
The whole of the first floor was seriously damaged: the walls
completely split in several places, broken arches, and countless cracks and
shaken beams, made it impossible to live there, so we had to evacuate it
completely. The chapel was particularly badly damaged: the wall at the back
behind the altar was not only split right across in several places, but was
leaning back so much, as also the niche, that temporary supports had to be put
up.
Our daily life returned more or less to normal. On the evening of 4 May the
Sisters were at Adoration, and the boarders at study, when suddenly at 6.50 a
dreadful tremor in vertical direction, followed by quakes on the ground, made
us all race out into the garden; the children were crying and screaming, some
of them kneeling on the ground which was still trembling, their arms
outstretched in the form of the cross. Obviously, we had never before
experienced anything so violent, and something terrible must have happened. The
children from Cartago, particularly, who know how dangerous the IRAZU is for
the town because it is so close, were in panic, thinking of their families. And
sure enough, at about 11 o'clock that night, men came on horseback to tell us
that Cartago was now just a heap of ruins.
On the 15th of August, our Mother wanted to give the Blessed Virgin something as a sign of gratitude for our miraculous protection, and so a big procession was organized.
(Mother Christine :On the origin of the Contemplative Branch)
On 19 October there was an earthquake of minor importance; we were together in the chapel for Benediction; about thirty children, still feeling the effect of the terrible catastrophes sustained this year, ran out screaming into the yards, and some of us went out quickly to calm them down; but on the whole people are in a much less agitated state of mind. Cartago is quickly being rebuilt, and in consequence people are coming back. In San José too, lovely homes made of wood and fibro-cement are rising up everywhere; we ourselves have received permission to build our new ground-floor dormitories, across the gardens, and work is due to begin. We have had workmen in the house since the month of April.