Wednesday-2/27 The Evacuation

We got to school ok. The embassy warnings we recieve via the internet reported a lot of violence in outlying cities. Around 10:30 or so drivers started showing up to get kids because there were riots throughout the city. I found out because the French teacher Francois, stopped teaching my class and asked me to find out why all the Americans kids were leaving. It was a bad sign. I was in the middle of emailing my parents that there was a bit of civil unrest and that we were fine-my email changed at the very end. It was decided by the embassy that it was too dangerous to move any kids and then no one could leave the campus. Rumors were flying as some of the drivers came in telling us things that were not confirmed-rioting, looting, barricades, fires. Kids got wind of some of it and a few of my students got upset. The older kids were more flustered as they were trying to get a hold of their parents via cellphone and got bad news. Needless to say the academic day was shot and we were doing our best to keep the kids calm and distracted. Many staff were on cell phones trying to get information and to make sure their families were ok.
Around 12 the bell rang. At first I thought it was the civil unrest bell and had started to barricade my class into my room. Harry came along and let us know to go to the soccer field as it was a fire alarm bell. It was really so we could all be together to get evacuated. Our school has no PA system-- kids were leaving with drivers and we just needed to make sure everyone was accounted for. Pete worked with Harry, Nanci, Ann , and Miguel (security officer from the embassy) to get kids on busses or rides home.
All through this I was nervous, but kept it light as a few of the kids were visibly shaken. I got nervous when we heard helicopters. There are no helicopters here. Nothing flies overhead here, except out at the airport. We have never even seen one before. Now there were more than one helicopter looking for crowds to drop tear gas on. That made me tremble inside.
Once all the kids were finally gone we headed out. With us was Meredith and Adrianna. Adrianna is student teaching here, her parents are missionaries here, but she could not get a hold of them so she came to stay in our building with us. The roads were clear, but we saw large burn marks on the roads and a back hoe drove down the road with about 15 militia on it. We had no food to speak of so Kristie let us shop in her pantry.
We made it home with no problems. Meredith and Adrianna camped out with us while we ate, got phone calls with updates, and try to distract one another.