THE NOBLE MEDIA AGUA

Here’s a little story that tells a lot about the ebb and flow of life. Although it leaves me wondering a bit if there is more ebb than flow, here it is. My Peace Corps group arrived in Bothell, Washington, to begin our orientation for service in Chile, over 40 years ago…July of 1967 to be more precise. About 40 of us were going to work in forestry sector development, and about twenty had been chosen to help a new low-cost housing initiative. We were immediately tasked with designing and building small temporary wooden shelters for the married couples of our group, since the single males (all single members of our group were male) were assigned to live in the close quarters of a dorm-like structure.

Enter the main character of this story…we were instructed to build about a dozen “Media Aguas”. What? In English that would be a dozen “Half Waters”? Well yes. It turns out that the progressive government of Eduardo Frei Montalvo had launched in 1965 a massive program to decrease the housing deficit in Chile, through a comprehensive program that was based upon the concept of a way of life defined by the neighborhood, and was establishing low-cost housing incorporated with schools, health clinics, and sports fields. The basic housing unit was the “Media Agua”, and the method to build them was the self-help approach whereby the beneficiary families were responsible, with government help and oversight, for building the houses.

The Media Agua was a wooden structure, with a door and several windows, about 200 Square feet in size. It didn’t necessarily have running water or a bathroom, since both were provided communally in most cases. Heating for the winter months at that time was provided if at all from a charcoal-burning grill-type heater, the cause of many injuries and deaths over the years from fire and asphyxiation. Electricity could be connected, although it was scarce, and for those who had a connection, an electric table-top burner could be installed for cooking. Lighting and cooking with bottled gas became an alternative to charcoal and electricity over time. Our Peace Corps housing volunteers lived and worked in these very poor, often crime-ridden developments on the outskirts of Santiago and other secondary cities, working closely with the community leaders and working side-by-side with the residents as they constructed their new communities. For most of these people, the Media Agua was an improvement over their previous home.

But back in 1967, as we arrived in Bothell to begin our Peace Corps service, not one of the incoming housing volunteers had even heard of a Media Agua, much less built one. Hence, their need to be familiar with this construction, coupled with the need for more private housing for the married couples in our group, they learned by doing, and designed and built a dozen Media Aguas. Over their two and in some cases three or more years of service, these Peace Corps Volunteers were part of a huge movement that resulted in greatly improved housing for tens of thousands of very poor Chileans.

But over the years, Chile developed and expectations grew significantly, to the point in the 1990s and early 2000s that the communities providing the wooden Media Aguas became the housing option of last resort for the poorest, least educated, sector of urban Chile, and the Media Agua was seen as a symbol of a level of poverty that Chile intended to eradicate once and for all. To wit, Michelle Bachelet declared in 2006, when she became President, that Chile would no longer be “A country of Media Aguas”. And as she and her administration approached the end of their term in early 2010, they were well on their way to making that the reality, as many newer, more adequate models of low-cost housing were springing up the length of the country on the outskirts of small, medium and large urban centers. The Media Agua was becoming history.

But, as the wheel of fortune turned down on Chile in late February, the massive earthquake that struck the south central part of the country unfortunately brought the Media Agua back on center stage. Close to 400 thousand were left homeless by the quake and the subsequent tsunami, just a month or two before the rainy, colder winter weather would set in, and massive emergency housing was needed. The estimate was that at least 40,000 temporary housing units (mostly Media Aguas) would be needed. Over time, the Media Agua had gone through model changes, but is essentially the same as our Peace Corps Volunteers and their Chilean counterparts worked with in the late 1960s. Humanitarian relief agencies, like the Hogar de Cristo’s “Un Techo Para Chile” relies heavily on the media agua model to provide housing through out Chile, but especially now for the 20,000 unit commitment they have made in the Bio Bio and Maule Regions for those affected by the earthquake.

As a temporary shelter, the Media Agua will provide many families who lost everything in the tragic earthquake, with a roof over their heads this winter. Chile produces in excess softwood construction lumber (mostly fast-growing radiate pine) highly appropriate for the construction of Media Aguas, and much of this production is centered in or near the affected Bio Bio and Maule regions. This facilitates timely, economical provision of large amounts of housing. An interesting sidebar to this story about housing is that many of the forestry Peace Corp volunteers who helped build those dozen Media Aguas in Bothel, Washington in 1967, served in the Bio Bio and Maule Regions, promoting the massive reforestation efforts which 40 years later are paying of with raw material for the provision of emergency wooden housing to earthquake victims.

However, Chile has grown a lot over the past 40 years, since our Peace Corps Volunteers helped build communities of this type of housing. Chilean’s expectations regarding housing are, rightfully so, a lot higher now, and the Media Agua is not acceptable as permanent housing for most, if not all, Chileans. Some communities in the aftermath of the disaster have even rejected the “gift” of this housing in disaster relief efforts, for fear that this will be all they see from the relief effort, in which case they would be stuck in housing in many cases inferior to what they had prior to the earthquake. The housing that in the 1960s was touted as an improvement in living conditions is now seen as an inferior mode of living. Meanwhile, engineers, architects, and builders are modifying the basic Media Agua model. In the long run, they will surely produce satisfactory wooden houses, probably combined with brick and cement that will become the norm for modest housing, replacing the outgrown Media Agua and the traditional adobe construction that failed so extensively in the earthquake.

So the noble Media Agua, that we Peace Corps volunteers were introduced to in Bothel, Washington, in 1967, again comes to the rescue of a population of poor Chileans in need of a roof over their heads, it will serve its purpose and again (soon, hopefully) give way again to better housing more consistent with the aspirations and means of present-day, modern Chile.

Well done, Media Agua, Chile owes you a big debt of gratitude.

Written in McLean, Virginia, on May 25, 2010.

THE BIG QUAKE....THREE MONTHS AFTER

Almost three months have passed since Chile’s record-setting earthquake; 8.8 on the Richter scale, more than 2 and a half minutes of agonizing length, and followed within the next couple of hours by several horrific tsunamis. On that February 27, 2010, the world stopped for most of Chile, phones did not work, electricity was completely cut off, drinking water was cut off for millions, and chaos reigned in several of the most affected centers in Bio Bio and Maule, especially Concepcion, Talcahuano, Talca, Curico, Cauquenes, and Constitucion. Since then there has been much suffering and acrimonious finger-pointing and blame-placing for shortcomings in the initial response and subsequent planning for reconstruction. But there have also been amazing acts of courage, solidarity, and recovery.

To put this earthquake somewhat into context, it is interesting to note that the largest earthquake on record in the United States was a 9.2 quake in Prince William Sound, Alaska, on March 28, 1964. The largest quake on record in the world was a 9.5 quake in Chile, on May 22, 1960. Scientists claim the recent 8.8 Chilean quake was so strong it moved the earth on its axis 3 inches, and shortened the day by 1.26 microseconds. Both numbers are so small they are hard to fathom, but the idea of these “adjustments” is disconcerting, to say the least. There are 500,000 detectable earthquakes annually, of which 10,000 can be felt and 100 cause damage. In the 3 months following The February 27th quake in Chile, over 200 earthquakes were felt, many of which were over 6.0 and several over 7.0, the strongest of which were the 3 aftershocks on March 11, precisely during the inauguration ceremonies of President Sebastian Pinera. Since then the headlines in Chile’s leading newspaper reveal the reality Chileans are living: April 4, “Medium-sized earthquake awakes Tarapaca Region”; April 5, “5.5 quake in northern zone of the country”; April 10, “5.5 quake in the Fifth Region”; April 16 “In less than one hour, three earthquakes grade 5.0 shake the Seventh Region”; April 17, “Quake awakens the central zone”; April 23, “Small tremor in Tacna”; April 23, “5.6 earthquake southeast of Easter Island”; April 24, “Small quake shakes Valparaiso, Santiago, and O’Higgins Region”; May 5, “Strong quake alarms the area of the Chile/Peru border”; May 9, “Small quake in O’Higgins Region”; and May 18, “ Quake of 4.8 intensity shakes Maule Region”. Some were aftershocks related to the February 27 quake, but many were unrelated events.

Another way to understand what happened in Chile on February 27, is to compare it to the Haiti earthquake that occurred just prior to the Chilean quake; Haiti was 7.0, Chile 8.8 in intensity or 500 time stronger. In Haiti, there were over 200,000 deaths, in Chile, less than 500. In Haiti 280,000 buildings were destroyed, in Chile 500,000. In Haiti the President of the country made his first public statement 168 hours after the quake, in Chile she made a statement 2 hours after. In Haiti the government accepted foreign assistance immediately, in Chile only after 48 hours, when the authorities had a rough but better idea of what was needed form the international community. The Haiti situation is still on the front pages of the print media, while the Chile quake is no longer “news”.

Much damage was caused by the tsunamis that followed the quake (some details of this damage were described in earlier postings on this blog). A tsunami is distinct from a tidal wave. A Tsunami is a sea wave caused by an underwater earthquake or landslide usually caused by an earthquake, whereas a tidal wave is a shallow water wave caused by gravitational interactions between the sun, moon and earth. Chile’s was definitely a tsunami. Another dimension to this earthquake was the damage caused by resultant “seiches”. A “seiche” is the violent waving action a body of liquid within a container, such as a swimming pool, toilet bowl, or wine vat, such that most of the liquid is splashed out of the container or in worse cases, the container collapses or is tipped over. The many reported cases of swimming pools and toilet bowls emptying out in the Chilean earthquake are interesting, but the damage to many wine vats caused by this “seiche” action is more serious. However, coming right before the wine grape harvest, many vats were empty awaiting the new production.

As communications came back on stream, and as the days and weeks passed, the breadth and depth of the damage became depressingly clear. A month after the quake, the main media were reporting 345 deaths, 95 missing, 256,000 homes seriously damages of which about a third were totally destroyed leaving 800,000 homeless, 35 hospitals totally or seriously damaged, 2,750 schools destroyed, 600,000 school children unable to start the school year in their schools, and a total of US$ 30 billion estimated losses, public and private. This represents 17% of Chile’s GDP.

Two months after the quake, the death toll had reached almost 500, with very few still missing. 25% of these were deaths from the Tsunami. Officials now report two million people were affected, and destruction to 370,000 homes, 73 hospitals, and 4,012 schools (half the schools in the affected area).

The main north-south artery, the Pan-American highway, along which flows most of Chile’s transport and public transit, and upon which much of Chile’s agro-exports depend to reach the ports of San Antonio, Talcahuano, and Valparaiso (also severely destroyed) suffered damage to overpasses and road surface in 300 places. This severely restricted the movement of people and goods, although a certain level of normalcy was reached soon in the flow of cars, busses and trucks the entire length of Chile. Chilean fruit exports are now flowing almost normally, although there are significant port upgrades and investments still required.

On May 21, President Pinera reported to the nation a comprehensive set of initiatives for his first year, including several references to earthquake recovery. He reported that their target date for having all school children back in school (April 25) was met under the guidance of the Minister of Education, Joaquin Lavin. This is a notable accomplishment given that over 4,000 schools had been damaged in the earthquake. A reconstruction fund has been set up with US$8.4 billion for housing, schools, bridges, hospitals, and public infrastructure. The goal they set previously to have 45,000 emergency housing units delivered to homeless victims by May 21 was met and surpassed by 5,000 units on that date. Many more units, and quality upgrades for electricity, water, heat and sewage disposal are required, and planned.

There are serious concerns and complicated debates between the Chilean Congress and the Pinera administration (essentially between the governing and the opposition coalitions), about how the reconstruction efforts will be funded, and how and when to move from reconstruction to the regular development agenda (education, health and pension reform, energy policy, citizen security, and employment creation….sound familiar?). Authorities are confronting the health threats during the winter months especially for the vulnerable population living precariously in the affected area, with programs like massive vaccination campaigns. And they are funding initiatives designed to reactivate the most affected economic activities (artisan fishing, forestry and wood processing, irrigation-based agriculture, and the small business sector).

Overlaying all this is the series of ongoing reviews of the disaster early-warning system, the response capacity of the national disaster relief agency (ONEMI), the role of the military in citizen protection during times of emergencies like earthquakes, and others. Chile needs top to bottom revision of institutional structures dealing with preparedness, siting (zoning) and construction standards of homes, apartment buildings, businesses, port facilities, and tourist centers, and many others, all of which will take time, money, leadership, and persistence, especially when memories of the February 27 quake begin to fade, and they will.


Written in McLean, Virginia, on May 22, 2010.

WIRELESS MOUSE

Realizing I probably would not ever see the wireless mouse I lost in my disorderly retreat from the Alonzo de Ercilla Hotel in Concepcion the morning of the big earthquake in Chile (see posting on this blog on 5/6/10), I reluctantly went to Staples near my home in McLean, Virginia, to purchase a new one. I told the sad story of my loss, and much to my great surprise I was rewarded with a new, flashy wireless mouse. I'm not sure whether the story was so believable that they felt I deserved a new mouse for what I had been through, or whether my story was so unbelievable that they gave me a new mouse for the best "story" they had heard in a long time. At any rate, I am grateful, but I still miss the old mouse, and still plan to return to Concepcion to see if by any chance they are holding it in the hotel for me. I will keep you informed.

Written in McLean, Virginia, on May 22, 2010

THE LAST PISCO SOUR

THE LAST PISCO SOUR

In the departure lounge of the Santiago international airport (“Pudahuel” to us old-timers, and “Arturo Merino Benitez* officially), they recently put a wonderful bright sign up over the bar that declared to all travelers leaving Chile “The last pisco sour!” It made sense, because while visiting Chile, if you are at all interested in the finest Chilean products, you will probably have become acquainted with, and maybe somewhat addicted to, the pisco sour.
Or, if you have visited Chilean friends or family, you know that every now and then (mostly now), a tray of sours will be passed around, especially before meals of which there are plenty, and you will have had one or two a day, probably more. In February, when we travelled from Santiago to Sao Paulo, Brazil, Ximena and I took pictures of that bar and the sign. Surely we didn’t think it would be our last pisco sour, but the idea stuck that as one leaves Chile, the chances of getting a good pisco sour go way down, unless you are travelling to Peru.


The Chileans and their neighbors the Peruvians argue over who “pisco” belongs to. The French of course defend “Champagne” as theirs, and only theirs, so I guess the Peruvians and the Chileans think they should also. But pisco is different. Really, only Peru and Chile produce pisco. I believe a recent international trade determination was made that Peru must market its Pisco internationally as “Peruvian pisco”, and Chile “Chilean Pisco”, if they want to use the term “pisco”. OK. What’s wrong with that? (And “California Champagne” and French Champagne”? Maybe not.) Maybe if each wants to increase sales of their pisco in the global market, especially the United States, they could learn from the successful generic advertising of the “mojito”, the “Cuba Libre”, and the “Margarita” and promote the drink, not necessarily the main ingredient or the country. Wouldn’t it make sense for Peru and Chile to market the “pisco sour” globally, together, rather than argue over who pisco belongs to? If the pisco sour ever really caught on in the US, together Peru and Chile could not produce enough pisco to satisfy the market. Maybe the Peruvians and the Chileans argue about this, something relatively inconsequential, to distract them from more substantive neighborly dilemmas like the placement of military facilities and toys along their mutual border, marine and terrestrial delimitations that affect mineral and fishing rights, Bolivia’s claim to access to the Pacific, and immigration and drug traffic control between the two countries. Arguing about pisco is better, much less consequential. As the argument goes on, toasting each other with pisco sours keeps the conversation civil.

But there is a definite difference in the way Peruvians and Chileans treat their pisco. Peruvians generally make a super pisco sour. They for the most part use one part juice of the small “pica” lemon, three parts pisco (usually the milder 35% strength, rather than 40%, 45%, or 52% which are better for drinking straight), sweetened to taste with “goma”, a liquid sugar mixture much like the bar syrup once used in bars in the US. With a bit of fresh egg white and a little ice, this mixture, blended, makes a traditional pisco sour. Peruvians serve this in bigger portions than the Chileans do. On the other hand, Chileans, who used to do pisco sours much the same way the Peruvians still do (although they have often tended to use regular lemons, or sometimes the lime-like “sutil” lemon, in place of the “pica” lemon). As Chileans have modernized their economy over the past 30 years, and their life styles along with it, they have become more “economical” with their pisco sours. Several years ago a very good powdered pisco sour mix appeared, in packages that made 8 or 15 servings. Just add pisco. .This was OK, but it did not produce the quality sour of old. But it was fast. For years I have travelled back to the US from our visits to Chile with several of these packages of pisco sour mix in my suitcase. I am doing it less now, since the multiple packages of white powder have increasingly attracted the attention of border security checkers, who either think it is some forbidden substance, or are Chilean or Peruvian and just want some of it. If I packed 10, I would arrive with 8.

Then, as you would expect, pisco producers figured out that you could basically accomplish the same thing by premixing the powdered sour with pisco, and sell it already to go, in bottles. More and more this is what you get when you have a sour in a restaurant or someone’s home. There are still good restaurants in Chile where you can get a very good pisco sour made from fresh ingredients the traditional way. The best pisco sour we enjoy is the one Ximena’s sister, Maria Paz, prepares at her home. Hers are great. And so are the ones they serve on the patio of the elegant Hotal Antumalal on the shores of beautiful Villarrica lake in the shadow of imposingly active Volcan Villarrica.


The distinction between Peruvian pisco sours and Chilean pisco sours has become so accepted in Santiago, that many restaurants, especially the burgeoning group of very popular and successful Peruvian restaurants in Santiago, now offer two different pisco sours on the menu: Peruvian and Chilean. What’s the difference? First, the price. Peruvian pisco sour is more expensive. Then, the size. Peruvian pisco sour is probably larger. Third, the Peruvian pisco sour probably has more “head” on it than the Chilean, suggesting inclusion of the egg white. Maybe the Peruvian sour will be made with Peruvian pisco, but you can not be sure of that. If the difference were only that Peruvian pisco is used for the Peruvian sour, and Chilean pisco for the Chilean sour, the distinction would have meaning, but not the price differentiation nor the quality differences. I think that generally, Chileans who order a Chilean pisco sour when a Peruvian one is also offered, either do it out of sheer patriotism, or for the lower price. It seems like “modern” Chile has lost interest in making a good, traditional pisco sour. They are more interested in making it easy than good, and are even branching out to the fruitier mango sour. I remember a time when I liked apricot sours, made with apricot brandy (pisco is only a grape brandy, really), so maybe they are on to something. To my amazement, it is catching on, especially with young drinkers and women who drink very little.

When Ximena and I left Santiago on April 14, to return to the US after our annual three-month stay in Chile somewhat disappointed with the evolution of the Chilean pisco sour, but still addicted to it (the pisco sour, and it’s siblings red and white wine, became constant companions during the weeks immediately after the big earthquake) I went to look for the “Last Pisco Sour” airport bar, thinking that maybe I ought to have one while we waited for our flight. To my great disappointment, the “Last Pisco Sour” bar was a victim of the February 27th earthquake that destroyed much of south, central Chile, and much of the interior of the Airport building. I thought about my plight for a moment, but then decided, OK, no LAST pisco sour. Good. That means more are coming, and that makes me optimistic about the future. The pisco sour, Peruvian or Chilean, is a great companion.

*Chilean aviator who founded the Chilean Air force and LAN Chile.

Written in Mclean, VA on May 15, 2010

VISITING CURANIPE, PELLUHUE, AND CAUQUENES

We awoke March 13 (Saturday, market day in Cauquenes), and made our plan that Flick and I would visit Curanipe and Pelluhue in the morning, pass by the sawmill in Chanco to get Joaco and Vero around mid-day, and go to Cauquenes to have lunch in the new enclosed central market, visit one of Joaco’s sisters who is married to a winemaker, and finally to check on the brother of our friend Astrid Semler, who was injured in the tsunami in Pelluhue and recovering in the Cauquenes hospital. But first, we drove into Loanco and delivered the “epicenter” tomatoes we had bought in Rengo on our trip down, and some frozen chickens we had also brought to Dago’s wife Maria to distribute amongst the folks there. Dago and Maria brought us up to date on their rebuilding plans; still not very clear. It sounded like “smart” and “stubborn” are still negotiating.

Pelluhue and then Curanipe are small, long, narrow towns located at the foot of a set of hills that fall abruptly down to the ocean. The shore here is rocky, the surf is rough and a destination for surfers. From Chanco, the first place you reach on the road to these two small towns is a place they call Mariscadero. It is an expanse of low, sandy land through which a waterway flows. Because of these characteristics, the artisan fishing industry of this area has settled in, with their homes, boats, and related businesses. It is low, flat, and was heavily populated, especially in the summer vacation period that was just ending on February 27. As we drove into this area, it was so very clear what had happened. Again, after the quake, the disturbed Pacific Ocean had backed itself up a bit, and then surged (or in Dago’s term, “swelled”) into the lowest area it could find, Mariscadero. It was harder for residents of Mariscadero to get to high ground, for they had further to go. Some did, but many did not. Mariscadero was left with almost no structure standing. It is a little hard to explain, but looked like pictures I have seen of the path of tornadoes in Oklahoma, or bad hurricanes in southern Florida. Only difference is these folks had only about 20-30 minutes, at 3:30 AM, after an 8.8 earthquake, to gather their kids, their documents, and get to high ground, before the Pacific stole their town.

On our way in, we kept driving, not knowing if we could or should stop to take a closer look. The road for the most part was cleared of the debris, but there were very few people around, and the few that were there were mostly staring onto piles of rubble, searching for precious personal items, weighing their fate. There were some military units helping to direct traffic (there was not much), and clear bridges. We drove on to Pelluhue, where I first checked the small establishment Ximena’s brother, Claudio, operates there in the summer, and where he and his family were the night of the quake. Their place is right on the central plaza in Pelluhue, strong enough to resist the quake and as we were quick to observe, high enough to escape the tsunami. But just below Claudio’s place they were not so lucky. As will happen in seaside vacation spots, if you don’t control building very well, eating places, small businesses, homes, and cabins for weekly rental pop up everywhere and anywhere like mushrooms. This had happened over the years in Pelluhue and Cunaripe. Started long ago as a place for the summer homes of middle class families of Cauquenes and Chillan, and vacationers from other urban areas of central Chile, these two spots had grown uncontrolled into bustling, overcrowded, hives of vacationers with their cabins, campgrounds, and all-night discos, at least during the months of January and February each year. On February 27, nature zoned Pelluhue and Curanipe (much like landslides and wildfires do in California).

More detailed description of the devastation all along the road that links Pelluhue to Curanipe, after what I have described about Loanco, Constitucion, and Chanco seems at this point to approach overkill. Lives here too were lost, mostly in the tsunami, many homes were completely destroyed leaving survivors homeless with the rainy winter approaching, businesses have completely gone, especially artisan fishing, and kilometers of roads and many bridges were ruined. Schools, health clinics, hospitals, municipal offices, prisons, and police stations were rendered useless, and will need to be rebuilt. But in Pelluhue and Curanipe the tsunami left almost total destruction along the road that links them together and with the rest of Chile.

Broad descriptions of disasters like this one often lose strength after awhile, because of the repetition, but as we walked past Claudio’s business by the plaza and down the hill a block to what was a street running along the beach, the site of a very sad personal tragedy came into view. Claudio and his wife and daughter had escaped the tsunami by getting to higher ground, and drove to Santiago immediately after the quake. But, we had heard early on after the quake that the mother of our friend Astrid, had lost her mother in the tsunami in Pelluhue. I knew where the Semler family’s cabins were built, and since it was only about 2 blocks from where we were walking, we went to see the site. Unfortunately, Astrid’s mother slept that night in a house that was in the path of the tsunami, and even though Astrid’s brother Geofrey, two of Geofrey’s sons, and a maid all tried to get her to leave the house before the water washed the house away, they failed, and she was later found without life in the street near where the house had been. Geofrey and several family members spent the rest of the night and the next day finding each other and getting to a safe place. Geofrey landed in the Cauquenes hospital with multiple injuries, and hi sister Astrid was still trying to reach Chile from her home in the US, so part of our agenda for this day included a visit to Cauquenes and the hospital.

As we left to go to Cauquenes, we noticed on a field on the edge of Mariscadero, that groups of young students were helping put together “media agua” temporary houses to be donated to the families left homeless by the tragedy. Trucks were beginning to carry away all the debris, and a graveyard for wrecked cars and trucks was beginning to form nearby. As we drove out of town towards higher ground, we were struck by a man sitting on the porch of one of the only small wooden shacks that was still standing after the quake and the tsunami. He was watching out over the few items he still had, and had placed 4 posters on the front wall of his humble home, a series that pretty much summed up the tragedy that was Mariscadero, Pelluhue, and Curanipe: the first was a blue, white, and red Chilean flag with “ARRIBA CHILE” (Up with Chile) written on it. The second poster said “ MALDITA OLA, LLEVASTE TODO LO MIO” (Damned wave, you took everything I had). The third gave way to anger “MANDE OTRA PARA LLEVAR TODOS LOS LADRONES” (Send another one to take away all the thieves!). And the last, with more optimism “GRACIAS VOLUNTARIOS POR DAR A MI Y MI FAMILIA AYUDA Y ESPERANZA” (Thank you volunteers, for giving me and my family relief and hope.). It is taking me page after page to describe this tragedy in Chile; it took this guy only 4 posters to tell it all better.

And it was only noon on this sad Saturday, so we picked up Joaco and Vero and went to Cauquenes to visit Geofrey in the hospital, which we did exactly the same time the new President Pinera also swept through with his entourage to visit. Geofrey was in good spirits but clearly not getting all the medical attention he needed for the injuries he had, especially infection, so there was talk of his transfer to a hospital in Santiago. The President’s visit was creating quite a stir, in part simply because he was there, with them, in this time of need and grief.

Back to the house overlooking Loanco, a good meal and lots of red wine helped us digest what we had seen that day. The big issues facing Chile were beginning to be defined, so with fresh images in our minds from Loanco, Constitucion, Los Pellines, Chanco, Pelluhue, Curanipe, and Cauquenes, we debated amongst ourselves the lack of early warning in tsunami-prone areas, the precarious nature of much construction in popular urban and coastal vacation areas, the huge job of repairing Chile’s essential and historical infrastructure, and the pain and agony so many Chileans are feeling for lost loved ones.

One more look at Loanco the next morning, and we returned to Santiago, for it was my mother-in-law’s 83rd birthday, and you just don’t miss that.

In spite of the enormity and expanse of the damage caused by this quake, there is abundant evidence that Chile will recover, learn, and grow from this terrible experience. The new government and a unanimous congress have already approved a special relief package to assist the poorest and hardest hit areas face their basic needs over the next few months. Roads and bridges are being repaired, traffic is flowing better, and electric and potable water is being extended to the affected areas. But, Concepcion and Constitucion are urban centers that will require special programs and may never return to the way they were before. Since February 27, there have been over 200 aftershocks over 5.0 Richter and 20 over 6.0. In isolation, any of these would have been a notable event in itself. But, even as this instability continues, there are clear signs that physically, Chile will fix itself.

Not so clear, however, is whether or not the soul of Chile can be healed. Can political Chile reconcile its ambivalence about the legitimate role of the armed forces in the provision of citizen security? Will February 27 replace September 11 (1973, not 2001) as the day Chileans remember? Is Chile to be defined by the bandits and thieves who sacked damaged stores, cars, and homes during the first hours after the quake, or by the thousands of volunteers who rushed to provide relief and comfort to the victims? Can the rebuilding effort actually result in better conditions for the poorest and most affected sectors of the population, and not just put a patch on the wound? The debate on these and many other important questions is just beginning.

Today is 40 years to the day that my relationship with this beloved Chile was cemented…Ximena and my 40th wedding anniversary. Since that day, the relationships with Ximena and Chile have grown together. Through the ups and downs, the quakes and the tsunamis, we face the future with extreme optimism, together with our wonderful children and grandchildren, sisters and brothers and other family, and all our good friends and colleagues. But, tempered by the intense experience of the last few weeks, we walk the beach with all Chileans clearly in our minds, especially Dago and Dona Maria, with one eye on the ocean waves and the other on the nearest hill.

Written on March 20, 2010, in Santiago, Chile.

VISITING LOANCO, CONSTITUCION, AND CHANCO

On February 12th, we awoke to a beautiful sunny day, with three destinations on our agenda: Loanco, Constitucion and Chanco. To get to Loanco from Joaco and Vero’s house, you can drive over the hill on a dirt road, but my preferred route is to walk down through a small planting of pine trees, across the sand flat behind the dunes, over the dunes, and down the beach to the village. About 2 kilometers in all. I had done this walk many times during my prior visits, because it is an exhilarating site and in the village I could get good seafood and watch the fishing activity. But it was very different this time, right from the start. I had seen no boats go out early to fish, and as we walked across the sand flat, it was obvious water had risen over the dunes and onto the flat that stretches up to the base of the small pine plantings Joaco put in to stabilize the dunes below his house. His house stands on a firm rocky ledge about 35 meters above sea level. The tsunami here was probably no greater than 12 to 15 meters, if that. So you have to figure that for the water to reach their house, it would have probably also have reached well inland, up river valleys, over much of Chile. But that fact still doesn’t seem to reassure you enough, when you are walking the same ground that had been covered with water just days before. Besides, as we crossed over the dunes, we walked into what can only be described as a beach trash yard. Over the extent of the beach the ocean was washing up everything it had taken from the village several days before.

We had been told that no one from Loanco died in the quake or the tsunami. They all fled at the first indication of trouble and waited back on the main road for a couple of hours until they were sure any threat of tsunami had passed. So while they saved themselves because they were smart and didn’t wait for anyone else to tell them what to do, their story is still very special and sad. What they told us is that they stood way back by the main road, where they could see the ocean but not the village, which was behind a bluff. They watched for what they thought would be a big wave, or waves. And they saw none. After a couple of hours and as daylight arrived, they thought it was safe to return to their village and homes and were pretty sure they had escaped destruction. They had not seen a big wave; because there was not any wave. As one man told me, the ocean just “se hincho”, which means “swelled up” in Spanish. No wave, the ocean just retreated a bit, then grew and grew and advanced over the first and second row of houses, and then, as it receded, it took everything with it; houses, boats, stores, tractors, cars….hopes and dreams.

We walked along the beach to town, kicking debris and collecting up small pieces of things that were interesting; a piece of a sign, half an oar with the owners name painted on the paddle, things like that. In town, a couple of people were cleaning debris into piles to be burned, but the place was almost desolate. I walked up the beach and into the skeleton of the restaurant (Dago’s) where I used to go for my late morning “vaina” (acceptable pre-lunch drink in rural Chile), raw sea urchins, steamed mussels and clams, seafood empanadas, and fried fresh fish. Only a couple of walls still stood on this cement building. Dago’s store next door was also completely washed away, with everything inside. Dago had seen us looking over his place, so he walked down the dirt street from a house up the hill, where he and 3 other families are living now, to talk with us. Saddened but not defeated, he swears he will rebuild his restaurant and store in the same spot, and all he asks of the local officials is that they build a storm wall between him and the beach to hold back the water next time. We have spoken since to his wife, Dona Maria, who as is often the case, may have a clearer view of what is right than her husband; and she is the cook. They most likely will find a place on higher ground to rebuild “Dago’s”. But maybe not. Stubborn often overrules wise. We had to move on, but it was hard to leave Loanco. Most of the folks were somewhere else tending to their immediate needs, which they said was what they did most mornings. But they join up in the afternoon to work together to clean up the town. We walked back across the beach (strange how you can walk along a beach with your left eye wearily looking at the ocean and your right eye nervously focused on the closest hill) to get our car at Vero’s house, and drive to Constitucion.

Driving up the coastal road from Chanco to Constitucion takes you through another small fishing village named “Los Pellines”. We had heard that it suffered great damage, and it did. But the way it happened was somewhat special…bad special. The village had their homes right on the rocky edge of the ocean, clustered around the outlet of a stream. The road goes right by the homes, crossing a small bridge built over the river. The tsunami “swelled up” right through the village, following the lowest land, and took everything, boats, houses and all, over the road and up the stream, leaving everything totally destroyed and piled up well above the road. We drove through, without stopping, but noticed a couple of families beginning to rebuild their homes right in the same spot. Where else?

Constitucion is a fairly large coastal town 35 kilometers north of Chanco, situated right on the ocean at the mouth of the Maule River. This used to be a wonderful beach vacation town, where Chileans from Talca and Curico spent their summers. It also happens to have been the Peace Corps site of one of the volunteers in our group, and is very close to where my traveling partner Flick was based as a PC volunteer. In fact, he met his wife (now ex) on this beach, and many young men of our PC group spent time in this once happy town of rocky beaches, river swimming, cheap seafood restaurants overlooking the beach, and music, drinking and dancing at night with the wide-eyed attractive Chilean women. Constitucion was a destination place for us and many others in the late 1970s, until a huge pulp mill was built right on the water next to the best beach, filling the town with the smell of sulfite (some say money), and turning it into a dumpy industrial-like town, dreary and sad compared to its earlier state, but still filled with wonderfully industrious and welcoming people. Most of the downtown area is still adobe construction, and the quake of Feb 27 destroyed most of the older buildings and along with them many of the newer ones. To make things worse, the tsunami, swelling and searching for the lowest place of least resistance, worked its way up the river, alongside the city, covering a small island where campers were unable to escape and swept into Constitucion from the side all the way to the central Plaza. We drove into town on the main street, and went all the way to the pulp mill, now flooded, injured, and silent, but threatening to again belch putrid smoke over the city by the end of March (and provide much needed jobs to workers who live in Constitucion). We could not drive down the coastal road where all the restaurants were, and chose not to walk there, because the restaurants are all gone and the remains are blocking the road. We were told that the set of cute bungalows a couple of miles down that road, past the restaurants, where I had stayed on an earlier trip though this area two years ago, had been completely washed out to sea.

We filled up the gas tank at a station right across from the CELCO pulp mill (now owned by Celulosa Arauco), and while we were waiting the attendant pointed to a three-story apartment building up the hill behind the station where he lives. I could only see two stories, which he explained to me was because the first floor collapsed in the quake and the top two stories fell into it, killing everyone as they slept. Another time I might not have believed him, but now I did. We then drove into the center of town, through total destruction, weaving between piles of adobe walls fallen into the street, and parked at the central plaza. It was a mob scene, but a quiet, morose one. Eating tents were set up to provide lunch and dinner to anyone who needed it. People were milling around and these folks were in a trance. I could not believe what I was seeing. To top it off, there were several tents set up with animal clinics, fed by long lines of people with their dogs and cats, having them checked, vaccinated, neutered, fixed up, and comforted. A young woman was trying to get the folks milling around in the plaza to do dance aerobics to a blaring boom box. It was bizarre. We just walked amongst the rubble and looked at the people, who surely have very little reason, other than that they are alive, to have hope for the future. It was a scene that makes you cry, and for a bit I did. We were bummed out by it all, and decided to leave. We still had to go to Chanco.

Chanco is one of the most classic rural towns in the Maule Province. One main street goes through town, past one and two-story adobe homes, many of which still open to large courtyards where large extended families live, have their small businesses, and even keep livestock. The main street passes on one side of the central plaza, by the bus station, newsstand, bar, local municipality buildings, and on to the important Catholic church where every year they celebrate long and intensely the Virgin de la Candelaria, and out of town on the other side towards Cauquenes, Pelluhue, and Cunaripe. We parked and walked around town a bit. By now we had seen so much damage and misery we were beginning to wonder if these folks would ever pull out of this tragedy. But in Chanco, we saw a spirit, drive and sense of community we had not seen up to then in other localities. Many of the damaged adobe homes had been already razed and the sites cleared of debris, or at least they were in the process of doing that. Men and boys were up on the roofs, pushing old ceramic tiles and broken beams off into the street below, to either save some of the material for the rebuilding process, or safely demolish the whole building. A team of structure inspectors had been through Chanco, and each structure had the universal “X” spray-painted on the wall, where the status of that place was noted in numbers (for dead, injured, or live inhabitants; pets; etc), and in words like “inhabitable”, “uninhabitable”, “demolish”. Each “X” tells a story, usually sad but sometimes optimistic (“gone to Cauquenes to stay with daughter”). The site where the church used to be was completely vacant. The first thing these folks did was take away their totally destroyed church, to be ready to rebuild when they could figure out how. We talked to a neighbor who told us very proudly that they had found all the statues of the virgin and other saints, and they were well protected to be placed again in their new church.

Some organized relief efforts were under way (after all, this was almost 2 weeks after the big quake), but these folks in Chanco seemed to be facing up to their fate and the work ahead pretty much with their own initiative, energy, and resources. They were using the “minga” system seen in many more traditional Latin American cultures (and in some in the US like the Amish), whereby they work in groups, rebuilding house after house together to take advantage of varied skills, availability of time, and the satisfaction that comes from working and progressing together. But we also saw that the first of the emergency relief wooden one-room structures called a “media agua” were being put together and placed on the cleared sites of homes so families would have a roof over their heads in the rapidly approaching colder, rainier winter, and give them time to rebuild their permanent structure. So we left Chanco a bit more optimistic, and decided that our visits to Pelluhue and Cunaripe (places we knew were in terrible shape, where the tsunami had done so much damage) could wait until the next day. We returned to Joaco and Vero’s house on the hill overlooking Loanco, and did our part, again, to help keep the Chilean wine industry afloat. We slept pretty well, with our minds focused more on the remarkable people of Chanco than on the hopeless situation of Loanco, Los Pellines, and Constitucion.

Written on March 20, 2010, in Santiago, Chile.

RETURN TO MAULE

On February 28, the day after the earthquake that shook and hammered the central south of Chile, Ximena, her mother, and I returned to Santiago . We, like many others in Santiago, suffered some damage to our 8th floor apartment but nothing, really, compared to what I had seen in Concepcion and Parral as I made my way back north just a couple of hours after the quake. Santiago was spared major damage, except for in several poorer neighborhoods on the south side of Santiago, a few poorly built apartment buildings in two lower middle class neighborhoods, and the older historically important neighborhoods near downtown Santiago known for the classical adobe construction. Also, several recently constructed bridges and overpasses collapsed on the high-speed roads that circle Santiago, so traffic was problematic for a couple of days until detours could be established and repairs begun. The early panic buying of food, household products, and gasoline waned in a couple of days, and the city returned almost to normal within the week.

During the first few days after the quake, news and pictures of the destruction in the south began to define the depth and breadth of the destruction, but the reality of the tragedy had not sunk in. On March 2, five days after the quake, Ximena prepared a nice reception for 25 family members at our home in Santiago for my 66th birthday, and we all ate and drank like sailors ashore, relieved we were well and together, but with one eye out (and nerves hyper alert) for the frequent aftershocks that were uncomfortably frequent. To make things more uncertain, everyone in Chile knows (or at least suspects) that after a big earthquake like this one (8.8 on the Richter scale), there will be strong aftershocks (“replicas”, in Spanish). The problem is that these aftershocks can come the next day, or not for two or three months. So even though we were getting back to normal, we were all plenty edgy. My old boss in Peace Corps Chile during the ‘70s, Gerry Foucher, was even sleeping in his car outside his apartment, instead of in his 8th floor apartment a few blocks from our place in Providencia. But for the most part, Santiaguinos were preparing for the opening of schools the next week, and the much awaited inauguration of the new President, Sebastian Pinera, scheduled for March 11.

However, most Chileans while focused on these two important events were also beginning to assess and share information regarding the early response to the quake and the tsunamis by the government emergency relief institutions. It was beginning to look and feel a lot like New Orleans and the hurricane Katrina response (or lack of response) in the US during the Bush administration. Slow and some wrong public warning (including from Bachelet herself) regarding the threat of tsunamis in the coastal towns of Bio Bio and Maule Provinces caused consternation, especially as it became clear that there was good information about tsunami possibilities passed to the key Chilean disaster alert offices from the global alert system based in the US. The consternation turned to anger. On top of this, the initial unwillingness of the Bachelet folks to call out the army to assist the federal police with public safety in the face of serious looting and theft in the early hours after the quake, especially in urban Concepcion, Chillan, Talca, Curico and Constitucion was also leading to a growing level of discontent and nasty criticism of Bachelet. Though the criticisms seem now to be mostly warranted, it is sad that this very popular President, who led a successful presidency, should end her term with the negative effects of this natural kiss of death. It will probably turn out that she was not well served by her key advisors, who were possibly more concerned about her image then they were about the victims of this tragedy. How much blame for the slow response really belongs with the Bachelet administration will certainly come out over the next few weeks and months, since the Pinera folks hold the bully pulpit now and are not anywhere as concerned about Bachelet’s legacy as is she. We shall see.

As it became painfully clear that there were whole towns and villages completely destroyed, mostly in the poor relatively isolated areas of coastal south central Chile, large groups of young students from Santiago, not yet in classes, filled cars, trucks, and buses with food, water, tents, blankets, clothes, and medicines, and headed south to assist their compatriots. Confusion was the order of the day, though, in part because communications were very difficult with the most affected places, and the overlay of high level attention from both the outgoing Bachelet and incoming Pinera authorities made it even more difficult to coordinate the response. On top of this, Bachelet and her people (and the Santiago international airport) were distracted early on from direct relief activities by the visits of international “friends” like Lula from Brazil, Correa from Ecuador, Garcia from Peru, Cristina from Argentina, Bon of the UN, and our own Secstate HRC (a previously scheduled visit), each bringing satellite phones, relief supplies, moral support, and promises of future support. Of course each required valuable face time with the media, security services for them and their huge entourages, and the time of Chilean officials, especially Bachelet who probably should have been organizing the relief effort. In a real ironic twist, good neighbor Evo Morales sent a plane load of land-locked Bolivian water to the Chileans.

The initial suggestion by Chilean representatives that Chile could handle this emergency themselves, and did not need assistance, probably stems from a developing sense of self confidence bordering on bravura broadly exhibited in today’s official Chile. After all, the first Latin American country about to become a member of the OECD should be able to take care of itself! However, these same officials, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mariano Fernandez, soon were backtracking a bit with the explanation that their earlier declarations of self-sufficiency were meant to provide the time they needed to evaluate their real and immediate needs before shipments of goods and offers of services began to flow from donor countries, so as to avoid flooding the country with unneeded and unwanted stuff that could not be delivered to victims and instead jam up airports and staging areas. This of course is not a bad approach, because many early shipments of relief goods from donor countries although well meaning, often are of little practical use. But the early expressions of self sufficiency in the face of a tragedy this large smack of exaggerated pride, surely somewhat humbled since by the true extent of this tragedy.

So, in a climate of increasing grief for the victims, much too slow delivery of essential food, water and essential services, laudable efforts by many to help, political recriminations of the Bachelet disaster response team, repeated seismic aftershocks, and the imminent Presidential hand off, I began to get the urge to visit the most affected area and see for myself the places I had not seen during my return from Concepcion the day after the quake. My initial idea was to try to revisit the coastal towns I had visited the day before the quake: Chanco, Pelluhue, Curanipe, Boyancura, Cobquecura, Dichato, and maybe Concepcion. I even thought maybe I could visit my Chilean colleagues’ widow Naya and family in Arauco (where I was headed on Feb. 27), and maybe even recover my wireless mouse and the two books I left in my rush to evacuate my hotel room the morning of the quake.

Ximena’s sister Veronica and her husband Joaquin had returned from Santiago several days after the quake to their home and sawmill near Chanco, and had reported that while the towns there were even worse off than was being reported, their own home in Chanco was undamaged and the place they have on the coast between Chanco and Constitucion on a bluff overlooking the fishing village of Loanco was miraculously also undamaged. But they were struggling with uncertain power and water supplies, getting their wood processing operation going while working with the Red Cross in Chanco delivering relief supplies to victims. My friend and often traveling partner in Chile, Dave Flickinger, had returned from his fishing trip to southern Argentina, and had moved his temporary base of operations from Ron Bloom's house in Valparaiso to our apartment in Santiago. Ximena was again having some back problems so would not be traveling anywhere soon, so Flick and I decided that it was more important for us to join Vero and Joaco in Chanco on Thursday, Feb. 11, than to stay in Santiago to watch the Presidential inauguration events on television.

The trip to Chanco from Santiago takes about 5 to 6 hours, mostly down the Pan-American Highway, but the final stage across the dry, rolling hills of Maule. We left about 10 am so we would arrive in the late afternoon in Chanco as Joaquin and Vero would be wrapping up their work at the sawmill and could accompany us to their coast home near Loanco. We filled the car with basic survival goods: bottled water, fresh vegetables and fruit, frozen chicken and sausage (we were planning several “asados” of course) a good supply of wine and bottles of prepared pisco sours, and a 24-roll package of toilet tissue. All essentials from our point of view.

We left Santiago going south along the Pan-American Highway, and noted with relief that the few problem areas in the first 50 kilometers where there where two bridges out were now operating quite nicely with well-organized detours. We were listening to the Pinera inauguration events on the radio, and were really enjoying the ride. There was very little traffic and it was a lovely warm sunny day. Flick and I both seem to energize when we are in the midst of large expanses of vineyards full of ripe red and white grapes, and the Maipo Valley south of Santiago is replete with some of the best of these vineyards. So, we were relaxed and off on our mission. As we stopped to buy a crate of tomatoes along the road, near the small town of Rengo, something very strange began to happen. The other drivers began to slow down and pull off the road. We noticed but didn’t connect the dots. We did, however, immediately pull over ourselves to buy the tomatoes, and were surprised by the vendor who was waving his hands and yelling as we got out of the car. He was trying to tell us that there had been a big “replica”, but since the tomatoes and sacks of potatoes he was selling seemed not to have fallen or shifted, we sort of discounted his concern, paid the excited man for the tomatoes, and got right back on the road. About a minute later, another replica hit hard, and this one shook the car and moved us back and forth on the road. Again, everyone was pulling over, and this time so did we. The radio began to announce that the epicenter of these very large quakes was RENGO, right where we sat! And then there was a third one. All in the matter of about 5 minutes. Cell phones were not working, so I could not reach Ximena (again, you might say….when will this guy learn!).

We contemplated turning back to Santiago, but since we were close to Curico, Flick’s Peace Corps site 40 years ago, we went on and stopped at the Cecinas Soler roadside restaurant where their famous pork products are sold. We sat down and had something to eat, and as we did, a couple smaller aftershocks occurred, rattling windows and rearranging furniture. I was still trying to reach Ximena to find out if she was OK and if I needed to return to Santiago, because a large quake in Santiago was being reported. As we left the restaurant, to get back on the highway, we noticed there was a long backup of cars and trucks on the highway, so we snuck through Curico and drove out the south end of town to another entrance to the Pan-American Highway. Finally on our way again, we received a text message from Joaquin in Chanco to the effect that we should “drive carefully over bridges due to recent replicas”. We did.

Ximena and I finally talked, and she informed me she was heading towards her mother’s apartment to spend the next few days, since hers is only on the second floor and ours is on the 8th!!! It does make a big difference in a quake, and she had decided she was “getting lower” for awhile. Flick and I drove on to Chanco, found Joaquin and Veronica at the sawmill and drove through the very sad scene in Chanco to their house (wood construction, not adobe) standing on a bluff overlooking Loanco. We took just a cursory look at Chanco as we went through town, because it was getting dark and we planned to come back the next day. We did notice, however, that about half the adobe homes along our route were destroyed. The village plaza was full of men, women, children, and dogs milling around, still not sure about going inside any structure with a roof and walls, even if they had one.

As we drove down the dirt path from the main road to Vero and Joaco’s house, we came to a small rise where you can look down below at the small fishing village of Loanco, and what we saw was about as sad a scene as I have ever seen. This is a village of about 15 or so families, all fishermen and all poor, and a place where groups of young adults and families come in the summer to camp, swim, fish, and enjoy fantastic seafood in the two small rustic restaurants in town. Usually, there are colorful fishing boats pulled up on the shore, waiting to go out early the next morning. But what we saw was complete devastation, boats almost all gone and those that were still there smashed and pushed back up the side of the hill. All the houses along the water were gone, and those further up the hill either damaged or gone. At the top of the hill a few houses remained standing, and a bit of smoke was rising from the chimneys of those houses and from several bonfires along the beach where people were burning the destroyed remains of their homes and belongings. Needless to say, we were shaken.

Chanco is in an area of rural Chile where forest plantations are increasingly replacing rain fed agriculture of beans, corn, and extensive animal grazing. Recently, however, they discovered that strawberries grow well there, and they have several large “frutillares” that produce super sweet strawberries for export, coincidentally this time of year. We had stopped at a small stand along the way to buy a flat of strawberries, so as soon as we arrived at the house we made a huge batch of “borgona”, dry red wine with sliced strawberries. Cooled with a bit of ice and sweetened with a bit of sugar, this smooth drink is similar to Spanish sangria but simpler, more straightforward, more Chilean. Joaco quickly made a fire with eucalyptus charcoal in his crude patio grill, and we grilled a large set of “merquen” rubbed pork ribs we had purchased at the Soler store in Curico, and while it grilled, we got stewed. Why not. “Replicas” happen. We retired late, numbed by what we had seen all day, especially Loanco, silent below on water’s edge, and by several pitchers of “borgona”.

Written on March 20, 2010, in Santiago,Chile.

Earthquake in Chile

EARTHQUAKE IN CHILE – 2010
Personal Experience

Whenever Ximena and I spend time in Chile, she plans a relaxing week away from the bustle of Santiago with her mom, at one of Chile’s lovely and popular pre-montain thermal spas. This provides a respite for me, during which I usually explore parts of Chile I love, and she is less anxious to see. We scheduled just such a “week-away” to begin on Tuesday, February, February 23. At 10 AM on that day, Ximena and I picked up Ximena’s mom, and we left Santiago to travel via the Panamerican highway south to a hot springs resort, Termas de Panimavida, where the ladies were scheduled to spend a few days. We arrived at about 2 PM, I had lunch with them, and I took off to Cauquenes and Chanco, two rural villages in the Province of Maule, to join up with Ximena’s sister, Veronica, and her husband Joaquin Pedreros. They run a small sawmill in Chanco, but live in a small house they built on a bluff overlooking a small fishing village named Loanco. Chanco is a few kilometers south of Constitucion, and a short ride in oxcart from Empedrado. My plan was to spend a couple of days with them, and then continue on to Arauco, a small town south of Concepcion, to visit Enrique del Rio, an old friend with whom I worked in the Instituto Forestal when I was a Peace Corps Volunteer from 1967-1970. I had not heard from this friend for 40 years, but wanted to find him if possible, since he had been very helpful to me and had even taken me to his home in Arauco where he and his father and a brother introduced me to raw “cholgas”, a huge mussel that can only be swallowed with great amounts of vino blanco. (The Cholga is so unique and challenging to eat, that it deserves, and will be the target of, a separate essay.)

I spent Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday night with Veronica and Joaquin, mostly reading and walking on the very long, solitary, beautiful beach below their home, and of course enjoying fresh fish from the cold Pacific waters off shore and delicious wine from the Maule valley. On Friday, Feb. 26, Veronica and Joaquin left their home early to spend some time at work and then travel on to Santiago that night, so I left in my car en route to Arauco, about 150 kilometers to the south, on the other side of the Bio Bio river . I had not yet been able to contact my friend, Enrique, so I did not know if I was going to be able to locate him. I stopped first in Pelluhue, just a few kilometers from Chanco, along the coast, to visit with Ximena’s brother, Claudio, who spends the summers in Pelluhue with his wife Tatiana and youngest child Catalina. After a short visit, I continued my drive along the coast towards Concepcion and Arauco.

At this point I was able to contact the phone I had for Enrique, but to my great sadness I was informed by his widow Naya, that Enrique had passed away 15 years ago. In spite of Enrique’s absence, she insisted I come for a visit anyway, to talk with her about Enrique and to meet his children, so I decided to continue my trip towards Arauco and stop by her home for a visit on Saturday. I drove along a very beautiful coastal road south from Curanipe, through two small coastal towns Cobquecura and Buchupureo, small fishing villages and places where many Chileans and foreigners, including many surfers, camp on the beach and rent modest bungalows during the summer. Then, I turned inland and had lunch in the small rural town of Quirihue. My plan was then to head down the coastal road to a small fishing village and vacation spot just north of Concepcion and Tome, named Dichato. This is a very popular beach town for residents of Chillan and Concepcion, that I had never visited, so I wanted to spend the night in Dichato and then continue on to Arauco the next day to visit Naya.

I arrived in Dichato at about 4 PM, and drove around, looking for a place to stay. I noted that this place was just like a lot of other coastal towns in Chile, quaint, filled with young and old alike enjoying the beach, the sun and the seafood, all in abundance. But, also like other small Chilean towns, there was no place for a traveler like me to spend a comfortable night. Mostly there were houses and cabanas with rooms for rent, and one ratty hotel I did not like the looks of. I made a swing through town and along the seafront street one more time to check it out, and saw a young lady leaning on a fence in front of a bunch of cabins clearly for rent (the cabins). I thought about stopping to ask if she would rent me one of the cabins for a night, but then thought better of that idea and decided to continue on to Concepcion to find a hotel. (Sometimes you make good decisions….although at the time you may not know why!)

Late in the afternoon, I drove into the bustling city of Concepcion, through Talcahuano, the port, and found a small oldish, traditional hotel, Alonzo de Ercilla, just a couple of blocks from the central Plaza de Armas. I liked it because in was a classic Chilean hotel, and I could drive my car straight into a driveway next to the hotel to park my car in a garage behind the hotel. I checked in and asked for a room on the top floor (4th) where the noise would be less from the street. And I went out to explore the city a bit. I had a nice dinner, watched a bit of television (Festival de Vina del Mar, a performance by the old favorite Spaniard Rafael who, unfortunately, during the performance lost one of his false teeth!!), and then I went to sleep. Little did I know this was going to be a very interesting night.

At about 3:30 AM, the big earthquake hit. It took me a bit to figure out what was happening, but after I did, I was not able to do anything except hold on just to keep from being tossed onto the floor, into the air, against the wall…I didn’t know what was going to happen. It seemed like the whole hotel was crumbling around me, windows breaking, TV into the air then onto the floor, desk and chair flying around. It lasted over two minutes…an eternity. The noise was deafening…like a freight train going through the room over the foot of the bed. And when it stopped, it didn’t stop. It just kept shaking, up and down, back and forth, every direction. I had to piss. So I picked up my cell phone from the floor and used its light to find the bathroom. The light worked, luckily, but phone service was already completely cut off. Then I tried to gather my belongings and stuff them into my bag to go downstairs. I had stuff all over the floor, and it was dark. I got everything into my bag except for, I realized later, a couple of books I was reading, and my cute little wireless mouse I use with my mini computer.

It seemed after an eternity that the quake was calming down, so I looked out my broken window, down onto the courtyard behind the apartment building next to the hotel. People were beginning to congregate there, since in an earthquake most people run into the open air. They were calling up to the apartments trying to locate friends and family, some were wailing, some were praying, and one guy had found a bottle of something and was sharing it around. Every car alarm in the city was sounding and there were still sounds of things falling, glass breaking, and general chaos and alarm. All the dogs in Concepcion were barking. I tried to use the cell phone to locate Ximena, but it was not working. So I headed down the 4 flights of stairs, avoiding fallen furniture, electric wires, and broken glass until I reached the reception area on the ground floor.

About a dozen other guests and two night clerks were trying to figure out what had happened, and what to do. Aftershocks kept the place shaking, at times quite strongly. The night clerk asked me if I was OK, and I said yes but that I was worried about my car out back in the garage. He immediately said “if it is a grey one, a wall fell on it!!” It was still very dark (about 4 AM), so we took a lantern with us and went to look at the car. We had to walk over all the broken glass from 4 floors of big windows in the hotel and every now and then we suffered another aftershock and more broken glass. When we got to the garage it was obvious I had a problem. The adobe wall had fallen in on the front of my car, so the whole front was covered with bricks, rocks, plaster and wood beams. I told the clerk I thought I could drive the car out from under the pile if he would just hold up a piece of plywood that had fallen first onto the car. He did that, I fired up the engine and backed my car right out from under the wall, and he let the whole mess fall as I escaped. I left the car parked in a “safe” place, and went out to walk around the streets of Concepcion to see what was happening, and to await the day.

I walked around in the dark a bit, using my cell phone as light, but I realized soon that there was so much damage it was dangerous to walk around very much. Walls had fallen in, blocking streets. Electric wires were hanging all over the place, and water was running out of apartment and office buildings where pipes had broken. There was no way to know what other structure might fall in the next aftershock. I could see clouds of dark smoke over the city towards the University and Talcahuano, which meant there were dangerous and significant fires beginning. Every now and then there were loud, dull explosions, suspected to be gas from broken pipes. I went to the central plaza, which was full of people sleeping, talking, praying, and listening to Radio Bio Bio, the only radio functioning in Chile at the time. The radio was urging calm in the population, but other than that had nothing to say except that they were going to keep everyone informed if they had any information. Later, and this is pretty important, they reported that there was absolutely no risk of a tsunami. Not good information, as it turns out. Tsunamis were already invading Chile’s central coastline, and they eventually caused many deaths and did great damage all along the coast.

Anyway, about 3 hours after the quake, I was slowly deciding I needed to get out of town. Some streets were obviously blocked. The two-story building on the other side of the hotel collapsed into the street. (Maybe indicative of the recent presidential election Frei lost, the collapsed building was the central command of the Christian Democrat Party and the Frei campaign in Concepcion.) In one of my strolls around I noticed there was a car flattened under the building. I thought, humorously, “This guy is not going to drive his car out from under that wall like I did, for sure”. My humor was misplaced….we heard later on the radio that the flattened car actually did have a body in it….probably someone who had stopped to get a little sleep before continuing on a journey he never finished. The quake was awful, in itself, but I began to realize the consequences more broadly were probably going to be a lot worse than what I had been through, and that if I didn’t get going, I might get stuck in Concepcion once the authorities started to try to button down the place and attend to the destruction. So, I put my bag in my car, tried to pay my bill (they would not take it) and took off. I had about ¾ tank of gas, so thought I could probably get to Termas de Panimavida, where Ximena and her mother were. I had not been in touch with anyone, and was quite worried about what had happened to my family and friends, so wanted to get moving. I knew my kids and other family in the US and Panama, Ximena, and her family in Santiago would begin to wonder where I was, and what I was up to. At this point I assumed the damage was limited to Concepcion. There was still no information flowing about the extent of this earthquake.

I drove out of town without much trouble, since there was no traffic to speak of. I got to the new main road out of town, heading towards Chillan where I would get the Panamerican highway north. As I left Concepcion, and went up the hill out of town, I noticed thousands of people camping out along the highway, and I realized these were folks that were avoiding the tsunamis…they either had not been listening to the radio, or didn’t trust the information, but they got to high ground, and it is a good thing they did. We now know that not only did the south central coast suffer greatly by the earthquake itself, they also were the victims of a serious tsunami.

I drove to Chillan without much trouble, only an occasional detour to avoid large cracks in the highway and landslides that covered the road. In Chillan I chose to drive around the city, instead of entering the center of the city, and headed towards Parral. At Parral I had to leave the highway, due to either a bridge down or some other obstruction, and drove into Parral. Extensively destroyed, this central valley town, birthplace of Pablo Neruda, has lost between a half and two thirds of their homes, most of which were made of adobe, wood, tiles, and metal roofing. This is a very old town, and has suffered as much as anywhere. When I arrived, the town was already stuffed full of cars, trucks, and buses, with hundreds of travelers all trying to get out of town, either to the north or to the south, their journeys halted by the blockage in the north/south Panamerican highway. Half the town was in the streets, camping out, with tents, blankets, cooking over fires, or just praying and staring into the air. Very, very sad. I thought a set of photos would be incredible, and I had my camera, but decided I could not photograph this agony….driving through without stopping to help was enough of a burden. So, no photos from me. I thought I was never going to find a way out of town, everyone was looking for a way to get through. Finally, and luckily, a guy in the street yelled at me that if I was trying to get to Santiago, I should follow a truck and two cars that had just passed me, that they had found a way out and onto the Panamerican highway. So I followed the truck. (If he had driven over the mountains to Buenos Aires, I would be writing this in Buenos Aires.) I just followed him, through back streets, along dirt roads, until finally we got on the Panamerican highway and I headed north to Linares, very close to the Termas de Panimavida, where I knew Ximena and her mother were. However, I was running low on gas, and all the gas stations were closed. Without electricity, most gas stations in Chile don’t function; only those old-timers who also have a generator with a pump. Anyway, near Linares I got a text message from Ximena’s nephew, Caco, who was in touch with Ximena and my children in Panama and the US, and who was trying to figure out where I was. I tried to call him on my cell phone, and also Ximena, but those connections did not work. I called my mother-in-law who was with Ximena, and that connection for some reason worked…I was finally in touch and let them know I was well, in the area, but running out of gas. I hung around Linares trying to get some gas, but finally decided I was not going to get any there, at least not that day (it was still Saturday, only 9 hours after the quake!). I decided I would drive to the Termas, and at least be isolated there, if I didn’t find gas, with Ximena and her mother. Well, I got there, found some gasoline that evening in a nearby small town, and spent the night in the Termas, drinking tranquilizing quantities of vino.

Sunday we drove to Santiago, avoiding several downed bridges along the way, and arrived at our apartment to find lots of small scale damage, and quite a mess (broken glass from pictures, cracks in the walls and ceilings, all books and decorations scattered on the floor, etc.), but nothing serious, nothing structural. We are cleaning up, resting, getting our nerves back in shape, but that is not easy since there are regular aftershock quakes that remind us of the big one. And, so important, Ximena’s brother and family, and sister and husband, who live in Chanco and Pelluhue, are fine and safe in Santiago. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that towns like Curico, Talca, Parral, Cauquenes, and Chillan have lost as much as half their infrastructure (hospitals, homes, stores, schools, roads, markets, stadiums), and most of their historical, mostly adobe, buildings (churches, municipalities, monuments). Full electricity coverage will take weeks and maybe months to come back. Water is a serious problem, and the longer these services take to regularize, the greater the risk of serious health problems.

The very bad news is that the coastal towns and villages of Constitucion, Cobquecura, Dichato, Pelluhue, Curanipe, Arauco, Iloca, and Llico de Vichuquen all suffered the same as the towns mentioned above, but also suffered the double devil of the tsunami, that has caused many deaths, missing persons, and very serious suffering.

And maybe the worst of all is the city of Concepcion and the port of Talcahuano. Besides all of the above problems, they are suffering serious looting and violence as thieves seem to be running rampant throughout the city and there is so far not much security. For apparently historical reasons the present government seems to be reticent to call in the military to apply discipline. The outgoing but still responsible “Intendente” in Concepcion is Jaime Toha, who has his own issues with the Chilean military. Anyway, they need to lock down Concepcion fairly soon, one way or another, and begin to activate services and begin the long recovery process.

My friend Dave Flickinger, who was initially planning to join me on this trip, missed all the excitement; he was fishing in Argentina with our common friend Ron Bloom, and is slowly returning to Santiago via the southern cities of Chaiten, Castro, Puerto Varas, and Osorno. He’ll have other tales to tell.

I’ll wrap this up. I didn’t get to see my friend Enrique in Arauco (because he died 15 years ago). I didn’t get to see his widow, Naya, or his children, and according to the news, Arauco is devastated and cut off from the rest of the country.

Ximena spent a nice week with her mother at Termas de Panimavida, although they are both shaken by the experience and so concerned about the suffering that is to come. My insurance will repair the car. My wireless mouse is probably lost forever in Concepcion.

Chile is facing a real rebuilding challenge. The new administration of Sebastian Pinera will face very serious problems immediately upon taking over on March 11, but starting out fresh with plenty of “ingenieros” (a source of criticism by the opposition Concertacionistas) on the cabinet may help. It will take the Chilenos awhile to bring their economy, their cities, towns, and “campos” in Maule and Bio Bio back to their normal optimistic vitality, but if anyone can do it, Chilenos can.

So join me, and all Chilenos, in one big VIVA CHILE, MIERDA.

Written in Santiago, Chile, on February 29, 2010.

Why this blog?

For almost fifty years, since I traveled to Santiago, Chile, to serve as a Peace Corps volunteer working in forestry sector development, Chile and I have formed a wonderful partnership. I have repeatedly worked in Chile, traveled extensively throughout the beautiful country from Arica to Punta Arenas, formed a loving bi-cultural family with my wife Ximena, and we now live part of each year in Santiago, and part in Virginia in the US.

Over the years, I have become so immersed in Chilean culture and socio-political events that I find myself writing about my experiences, thoughts, and concerns about what I see and hear, and I am especially interested in sharing this with others, not just to extend my ideas but also to hear from friends and others who may share my interests in Chile. Most recently I experienced, first hand, the terrible earthquake in south central Chile, an event that has left an indelible impression on me, so one main thread of postings on this blog will be on the subject of the earthquake and reconstruction. Unfortunately this topic will be current for an extended period of time, but what has happened to Chileans and how they are responding to the unbelievable destruction, death, and suffering is truly revealing of the Chilean character. Coupled with the timing of this disaster with the change from the Michelle Bachelet presidency to that of Sebastian Pinera, recovery is a challenge worthy of observation and analysis.

On the brighter side of things, I have, over the years, developed an intimate relationship with Chilean food and beverage, especially seafood and wine. Both are exceptional in Chile, and so are the people that process them and the natural environments where they grow. There is nothing more delicious than Chilean erizos, locos, cholgas, lapas, oysters and machas, and nothing more exciting than the small coastal villages where these fruits of the Pacific Ocean are collected, prepared, and consumed by some of the most incredible people I have ever met. Modernization in Chile is putting pressures on these products and the people who depend upon them, and it won't be very long before changes in this sector will so change the people and their communities that what I have known over the past half century will be mostly memories and pictures. I hope to contribute, through a second thread of postings, to the memory of the unique seafood of Chile and the valiant people who bring it to the rest of us.

Please enjoy my postings, and please join me in exploring Chile, its people and its riches.