After the earthquake I was scared and my first thoughts went to my family, mostly my parents as they were working and I knew they would be worried for me too, it took a few hours for me to contact them and actually see that they were okay, but then as fear started to drift away and worry took over I realised how lucky we had been.

I turned the radio on (it was the only way of knowing what was going on as we had no electricity or phone signal) and started hearing how many buildings were damaged, how many buildings collapsed and how many people were trapped in them, and there I was completely okay, nothing happened to my house nor my family. 

That day our electricity and phone signal came back. By the end of the day we had all of our services sorted and yet, there were people out there that had lost everything, even family members.

And as I started to contact the rest of family members and friends I realised how bad it had been, a lot of them were disconnected from the world, without electricity and had to walk home because of the lack of public transportation, most of them walked for about 4 hours.

That night as we turned the news on and people started asking for stuff I dragged my parent out of the house so we could take everything we could and more, there was one collapsed building near our house and lots of people had lost their home and work.

The next day I left my house feeling disorientated and worried, I wanted to help and so I did, for the next hours I moved, carried and and help everyone I could, but something inside me told me I could have done more, so much more, because right there I realised I needed to be grateful for all the things I had.

It's easy to take thing for granted, but in moments like this, when the world is crumbling down, you realise how much you have and how much you can do to help, be grateful for everything you have, even the small things. 

Mayte.