So I was with my mom, grandparents, and our driver, and we were speedboating to Paradise beach, a small island in Pondicherry, India. We were there waiting for the boat back, and I was happily feeding some wild horses and crows I found while my mom and grandparents sat on a bench.

This was when the rain and the wind started. Then the lifeguard said, "Ok, because of the storm, you guys have to wait for half an hour until the boat is safe again." My grandma was scared, but I thought that was ridiculous. Old people are scared of everything, am I right? It's just a little wet and a little rain. It's a motorboat anyway, not a sailboat.

And then, sand started flying in our eyes, so we couldn't see anymore. We were all instructed to take shelter in a nearby hut. I was still unafraid. What's a little bit of sand in our eyes right? We can just close them. I also reminded myself to take a long shower and wash my hair when I got home, as I pulled out some trash that the wind blew onto my hair and threw it far away from me.

All of a sudden, the hut collapsed on us. When I opened my eyes, I saw four people holding up the ceiling, or at least I was told it was four people-at that moment the sand was too blinding to see anything. I ducked as I saw the ceiling fan that was above my head had tilted and was now behind me. It was still spinning, due to the wind instead of electricity. If it had landed on me, it would have cleanly chopped my head off.

"Ok, now I'm scared," I said as I gripped my mom's hand and we both begin to pray loudly.

"There's a way to escape!" I heard somebody yell in the crowd.

I saw smaller people in the group crawled out some cracks in the bottom of the hut, a people pushing each other to get there.

"Go, go!" My family yelled at me, so I did and made sure they were coming behind me. I still couldn't see a thing, and I yelled: "Oh my god, hail is family !" When in reality it was just really hard rain as well as pieces of small rocks and sands that were hurting my back. Everyone else that was in the hut escaped too.

Then, we had to transfer to a different building but it was locked. My family stood underneath the roof where we were relatively sheltered, while my family argued amongst themselves on who's fault this was and whose idea it was to go speedboating in the first place. Then my grandma said that we should never have said we should stop going to temples. I instantly felt guilty.

Then, we saw some people lining up to climb through the window but of course, my grandparents couldn't do that. My mom told me to go, so I climbed in while my mom stayed out with them and waiting for the lifeguard to get the key so they can get in. Soon enough, thankfully, he did, and we waited out the storm. Thank god the storm passed when it did, if not the other building would've collapsed too and it was heavier so we'd have died for sure.

All in all, I'm glad I had this experience. Not because I learned any big lessons, but because it's a great conversation starter.