We were just about to finish class, sitting cross-legged and going into yogamudrasana. I thought of saying a few concluding words about gratitude, about the wonder of being alive, about thankfulness - when the ground started to shake and that awful sound of thunder, which as if coming from within the earth itself - filled the room. “oh no!” one of my students exclaimed as we crawled, rushed, staggered, -I don’t know how - exactly, - to the door and sat in the doorframe holding on to each other for the painfully long time it took for the earthquake to finish its thing.
The “oh no” was a plea for –“not now” cause we and I all knew it had to come sooner or later. I also knew that doorframes are supposed to be the more stable part of a building’s structure, – from the various courses in earthquake preparedness that I had attended over the last two years. I had never thought it would happen to me – or rather, it is the sort of thing you forget because you want to – that Kathmandu is awaiting a great earthquake. They appear every 60 years or so and the time since the last big quake has long been over due. So it was my mistake: I should, as a precaution, have unlocked the large double doors in the studio, which opens directly out to the parking lot – providing a quick escape route. But those doors don’t close properly, which annoys me, so I hadn’t - and instead we were now stuck by the backdoor leading to a narrow alley surrounding the building. And now Mother Earth was angry. She was laughing at me, shaking me like hell. Finally, all the awfulness stopped, I unlocked the glass door and we ran into freedom.
We were not alone there: our building complex houses several activity enterprises like bicycling companies, trekking agencies, the Kathmandu Jazz Academy and a company called Outdoor Adventures. The latter surely lived up to its name when their members got caught in this 7.9 quake while practicing rappelling down our five story building. The ground kept shaking. What should I do? What was expected of me? Not knowing, I went into the reception of our yoga studio, dutifully did the books, the receipts for walk in classes and yoga gear sold. I also, with the help of a Japanese student, put the huge bookshelf back up, rescued our merchandise from the he pool of water, caused by the water dispenser that had fallen from the counter, - and put all the fallen yoga clothes back on the shelf. I felt a bit guilty for not being able to find a cloth to wipe up the water from the floor, but I was scared…
“I want to go home,” I thought, I was hungry, having had neither breakfast nor lunch - but the ground just kept shaking, then it stopped, and then more shaking. I sat down on he grass in front of Café Moksh opposite our yoga studio. It was full of kids from an orphanage. They had come for a to attend a concert by the Jazz academy, which was now suddenly cancelled. What a day out! I managed to SMS my mum before the network broke down “ we’ve had a quake, but we’re fine” We started to receive messages that the large view tower in the city center had collapsed. It dawned on us that people had died…. We sat and we waited, while the ground moved with various intervals. The weather was weird, unusually cold for this season, we ran inside, got some blankets from the studio and waited some more…For some reason I had visited the bakery before class, which I rarely do. I had a whole loaf of dark bread and a huge piece of cheese in my backpack. I will remember that cheese and bread, cause I had nothing else during the following days. I also shared it with other hungry people, and it seemed to be able to "feed the four thousand" and to last forever.
At four pm I got on my bicycle ready to go home. By then I had received an SMS from my friend Cynthia on the other side of town saying that in Boudha, where we live, they were currently rigging tarps and tents to sleep outside. “You must be kidding” I thought. But as I rode through the old part of town, Patan, the extent of the quake became more apparent: I first passed the fire station, where the walls had come down, the street was blocked by piles of bricks and the fire engines were visible - looking ridiculously useless trapped behind the collapsed front wall. As I went further, the beautiful Newar temple on the corner was also reduced to a pile of bricks and wood. Now I started to worry. I stopped someone to ask if the bridges were OK - wondering whether I’d have to wade through the stinky sewer like Baghmati river, in order to get home. As I pulled into the main road it was unusually quiet. There were hardly any traffic but the streets were full of people – walking or just sitting perplexed in the middle of the big intersections, as far away as possible from any potentially falling building.
We had by now already been informed that many people were dead, in addition to the tower, many old houses were apparently fallen. I rode along alone in the eerie atmosphere of a city shutting down. I stopped by the only shop that still was open. Not knowing what to expect I bought a lot of Snickers bars, maybe there would be no food, no water, no home no nothing …..”at least I can stuff something sweet into my mouth and just experience “sweet” for a while,” I thought.
My house at first glance, looked OK ”Oh for Gods sake let it be OK, “ I thought – I wanted to go home now to sleep, to be warm, to be alone…- but as I went through the gate I saw that there were there were huge cracks outside, as if the building had been squeezed by its own weight until it ‘s foundation burst. Inside there were huge gaps in what was supposed to support a six story building.
So this Is the ground floor - I live five floors up...
“Did I even dare to go up?” Feeling i was walking into a house of cards, I was not so sure...The young American guy on the first floor offered to come up to the sixth with me to pick up some stuff. I had no Idea what to take. “ grab your passport and some money”. My practical neighbor suggested.” I don’t want to freeze.” I thought, and with joint effort we managed to squeeze my huge Norwegian feather duvet into not so big rucksack - and with that I left what I felt was a building crumbling beneath me.
I found them in the white monastery, - my people. My friends and my lamas. My friends Cynthia and Trokpa Tulku Rinpoche were seated on a rug conversing quietly. Cynthia had done her job: she had her pre-packed “go bag” survival kit which you are supposed to store in your house in case of emergency. She had a tarp, ropes, medicines and survival food. I had a duvet, now half a bread, and some cheese and six Snickers bars... I can’t go home, I thought. It was an annoying and and very unsetteling thing!
Strangely, we were seated right in the midst of a huge bush of Marihuana, which grows willingly anywhere Nepal....
But what really caught my attention was Chokling Rinpoche, the monastery’s vajra master – he was placed on a sitting room chair in the middle of the overgrown field in which we all were gathered, - He sat quietly on his huge chair with the most compassionate and loving expression on his face. I instantly dropped my belongings. Tears filled my eyes as I prostrated three times. I just wanted to put my head in his lap, and stay right there. Rinpoche`s presence made me shamefully aware of how little Dharma I have practiced,- how egoistic my thoughts were in this moment, and how desperately I hang on to this shell of a body which is so fragile and - soon to disappear. Home is where you feel safe. For me now that meant to be with someone beyond fear and not remotely afraid of death.
We decided to stay there in the field for the night - close to our Lamas…
Cynthia’s house was practically undamaged, but no one slept indoors in case of new big quakes. We quickly ran in, grabbed some mattresses and looked for a place to lay them down. By now our Tibetan neighbors, who are notorious camping and Pic nick proffesionals, had put up a huge tarp, rolled out their insulation material, covered it with carpets, dragged a few wooden beds from their houses, and made tea and tsampa. We put down our thin mattresses in a sloping spot, covered ourselves and tried to sleep under the open sky. There was the sound of crackling FM radios, crying children, snoring adults and the usual barking dogs. There was also the occasional little quake in the ground. Going to sleep that night I still had no idea about the extent of the disaster, and I was still wondering whether I was supposed to get up in the morning and teach Yoga in Thamel at 07.30 am. My friend Cynthia was wondering whether her final exam the following monday would be cancelled. By that time we had no internet or phone connection, we were digitally lost, invisible, stranded…