CHILE 2012

Dear friends and loyal followers,
It took me quite awhile to recover from the Peace Corps reunion in Washington on September 24, the subject of my last posting on this blog. But we are about to head south to Santiago again, on January 12, for a nice long stay of three months. I have gone back through all my prior postings, and find that I have promised to follow up on several interesting themes, but have yet to do so; like oysters, mussels, earthquake recovery, some special wines we have heard about and want to try, and of course the continual search for old friends, colleagues, and haunts from when I was with the Peace Corps in Chile.

In the runup to the reunion on September 24, I received many interesting letters from others who spent time in Chile, with stories that deserve some research to determine at least approximate veracity, but also an update on circumstances around the people and places those stories relate. Peace Corps volunteers Larry Rector, Tom Scanlon, and Brian Loveman have written books about Chile over the years since their Peace Corps service, and I would like to visit their sites and see what they are like now, compared to what we hear about them as long as 45 years ago; especially Trovolhue where Brian and his wife helped a town move their village to higher ground to avoid annual flood waters from the river, and the area in the Araucania region of southern Chile where Tom wrote his letters home that served as the basis for his book "Waiting for the Snow".

Also, Jim Dungan, who now lives in the Temuco area on his farm, wrote me a very long description of how he, when he was a Peace Corps Volunteer, was pretty much responsible for introducing Radiata pine to Chile. Since this introduced species has become the basis for a very successful forest industry sector in Chile (and the target of the environmentalists ire for contributing to the "sterilization" of the Chilean countryside), I would like to get Jimmy D. around a bottle of Chilean tinto and delve deeper into the true story of how this tree came to Chile.

And speaking of introduced species in Chile, we have made much of the role the US Peace Corps played in the introduction of salmon, as class of fish that has also, along with Radiata pine, resulted in incredible economic growth of an export product and a whole leading sector of the Chilean economy. But, some of the stories are short on details, so even though I have promoted the positive aspects of what has gone on in Chile with the introduciton of salmon, I would like to spend time visiting with long-time Peace Corps marine biologist counterparts I knew several years ago in Chilean Universities, like Alfredo Cea and Juan Carlos Castilla, if I can find them.

It seems there was one Peace Corps Volunteer in Valdivia who became a member of the community band that played in the town square every weekend. He is remembered not only as a friendly "gringo" who wanted to be part of his town, but also for the instruments he brought from the US and donated to the group. Just before the September reunion, we received a note from one of the band members, remembering fondly the Volunteer who lived up to the best people-to-people dimension of the Peace Corps. I would like to share a pitcher of iced white wine with peaches, clery, with this old Valdiviano and get a bit more flavor of the town band.

The last time I left Chile, I sat next to a New Zealander who has lived in southern Chiloe, near Castro, where he raises oysters, clams and mussels. He invited me to visit him and see how his operation has grown and how he is trying to raise these bivalves in an environmentally sustainable way. This visit is high on my list for this trip to Chile, if for no other reason than that I was so impressed with the New Zealander green lipped mussels when I visited that country for my Godson Joaco's wedding, that I am sure this guy can do wonders with Chile's best mollusks.

So, you have been forewarned....there will be much more coming. But I want to try something new this year. I am acceding to the oft-repeated suggestion that my postings are to long, and have decided to try to post more frequently, but shorter pieces. We shall see how that goes.
Until then, Happy New Year. I hope to see all of you in 2012, but if not, at least an occasional exchange of views and high thoughts.

Un gran abrazo,
Dave

Posted in Panama City, Panama on December 28, 2011

CELEBRATING 50 YEARS OF PEACE CORPS

Saturday, September 24, 2011 was a great day for those of us who served in the Peace Corps in Chile. Under a threatening sky, over 220 returned Volunteers from throughout the country gathered at the invitation of the Embassy of Chile, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Peace Corps and our lasting relationship with the fine people of Chile.

At about 1 PM, in the patio and courtyard of the Museum of American Art in downtown Washington, DC, just a couple of blocks from the White House and behind the majestic building of the Organization of American States, two tents were finally raised in place to shelter our group from forecasted inclement weather that, fortunately, did not materialize.

An impressive display of posters with pictures and stories of Peace Corps Volunteer activities throughout the years welcomed the participants as they streamed in, young and old alike. There were 70 year olds from the first groups to arrive in Chile in 1961, and 30 year olds who served in the last group that left Chile in 1998. Each Volunteer who attended was given a copy of the freshly edited publication “The Peace Corps in Chile; 1961-1998”, soon to be available online on the National Peace Corps Association website.


True to form, the menu began with classic empanadas washed down with rich Chilean red and chilled white wine and accompanied by recordings of those old Chilean tonadas sung by the Huasos Quincheros. About an hour into the reunion, as more Volunteers showed up and the reencounters after many years of separation began to create a happy din, Peter Walsh, a Volunteer who served in Valdivia in 1964, played the National Anthems of Chile and the United States on his accordion as the groups sang along. The Chileans present were duly impressed that so many gringos actually knew the words to their national song.

It was a wonderful afternoon of meeting and greeting people we knew and worked with many years ago, some of whom we had not seen since leaving Chile. We had great fun sharing memories again with Volunteers from our PC Chile group, including Ron Bodinson, John Hager and Blanca, Carl Gallegos and Brenda, Jerry Dillehay, Ron Billings and Carmen, Lee Baker and Suzie, Millie Wetterberg, Kerry Mills and Pete, and Willie Goldsmith.

It was also a great pleasure to reunite after many years with Volunteers who served, and whom I became close to, when I was on the staff of the Chile Peace Crops program from 1976-79: Connie Mohlis, who helped develop the chinchilla reserve near Salamanca in northern Chile, Sean Keagan who served in a farmers coop in Hijuelas north of Santiago, Raoul Gagne and Paul Randolph who were professional natural resource specialists working to better manage Chile’s water and forest resources, Christine MacNaughton who was one of Augusta Crino's star Volunteers in the rural health program, Gary and Elaine Gepford who contributed modern approaches to physical education training and of course Linda and Floyd Thompson who contributed so much to the design of visitor facilities and environmental education programs in national parks.

A Chilean buffet was set up, featuring ceviche, pastel de choclo, chicken and beef pinchos, and several salads including ensalada Chilena. As the dessert of fruit mousse and fresh fruit was served, the speeches began.

First, Joe Keyerleber greeted the Volunteers on behalf of the first group of Volunteers who went to Chile in 1961. He reminded everyone of what it was like to be the first to join up for something as novel and exciting as the Peace Corps. And, he read a greeting from Father Theodore Hesburgh, who was intimately involved in training and supporting those first Volunteers to go to Chile, and who continues to meet annually with these Volunteers in spite of his advanced age and delicate health. Hesburgh’s greeting ended with a very personal message to the Volunteers:

“Each and every one of you has a personal story to tell about your time in Chile. You helped Chile grow, and at the same time your experience led to your personal growth and that of our nation. Because of you and your service in the Peace Corps, we are a society more aware and sensitive to the broader world around us, and this contributes to world peace. Thank you for your service in the Peace Corps. Don’t ever forget why you went, and always cherish and share what you brought back with you.”

Representing the last group of Volunteers to serve in Chile, Christina Machion Quilaqueo spoke about the many cultural and personal links Volunteers maintain with Chile and Chileans well past the end of their Peace Corps service. She married a Chilean and like so many others, has a child who is bilingual and bicultural, “…where celebrating Dieciocho is just as routine as celebrating the 4th of July; where eating empanadas is a ordinary as having a burger; and where hopping on a few planes to vacation with abuelita and tata is way more fun than going to the Jersey shore.” She ended her greeting citing Ambassador John O’Leary who, in 1998 while talking to the Peace Corps staff in Santiago said:

“The US can be proud of what the Peace Corps has contributed to Chile, but none of it would have been possible if Chileans did not open your arms and your homes to welcome these North American Volunteers. The marvel of the Peace Corps experience worldwide is that Volunteers return to the United States saying they will never be able to repay what they received, and the citizens of countries where Volunteers served say they will never forget what the Volunteers contributed to their country. The Peace Corps has helped broaden the United States’ view of the world, and I trust the Volunteers have given Chile a better understanding of the United States.”

Christina ended by addressing directly the Ambassador of Chile: “On behalf of all the Peace Corps Volunteers that have served in Chile, I would like to express our heartfelt gratitude through you, Mr. Ambassador, to all the Chilean people that we worked, lived, and shared so much with us while we served as Volunteers in your beautiful country, our adopted home.”

Representing the State Department, Jason Vorderstrasse, Chile Desk Officer, read a greeting from the Department, which included another quote from Ambassador O’Leary, who said in 1998 in Santiago: “The best friends that Chile has in the United States are the 2,500 Peace Corps Volunteers who served in Chile, who proudly tell all who will listen, “I worked for the Peace Corps in Chile”.

The Chilean Ambassador, Arturo Fermandois, then congratulated the 220 returned Peace Corps Volunteers who had come to Washington to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Peace Corps. He noted that between 1961 and 1998, over 2,500 Volunteers had served in Chile, an impressive number to be sure, and that for so many to come together for this reunion was a testimony to the commitment Volunteers feel for the Peace Corps and the country in which they served, in this case, Chile.

Fermandois stated that over the past 50 years, since the first Peace Corps Volunteers arrived in Chile, great advances had taken place in the Chilean economy, and he recognized that Volunteers had made significant contributions in many of those sectors where the most development has taken place. He mentioned specifically how PC Volunteers had assisted with the relocation of the entire town of Trovolhue, affected by the earthquake of 1960, and the role the Peace Corps played in the introduction to Chile of salmon, now a leading export product. He thanked the Volunteers and the United States for what the Peace Corps did in Chile.

The Ambassador recognized the intercultural learning and integration that takes place with participants in partnership services like the Peace Corps, and noted humorously that it was clear that Peace Corps Volunteers were “risk takers”, given that so many had married Chileans, according to him a very risky undertaking.

Fermandois explained that the Government of Chile is totally committed to developing more partnerships with US institutions of all types and levels, and he described his recent visit to Harvard University where they discussed educational exchange programs between US and Chilean Universities.

He ended his greeting to the PC Volunteers noting that Chile was deeply committed to more interchange between Chile and the United States, a commitment that underlies Chile’s determination to obtain U.S. Visa Waiver status for Chileans visiting the United States, and he even suggested that a Peace Corps type program that would bring Chileans to the United States might be a viable program to pursue in the future.

Bringing this historic encounter to a close, the 220 Volunteers joined Ambassador Fermandois in a loud “Viva Chile”, after which pictures were taken of the group with the Ambassador Fermandois. The event ended with repeated “Viva Chile” and even a verse or two of “Si Vas Para Chile”.

Later that same night, the ever resilient Chile 27/28 group of Hagers, Bakers, Gallegos, Joslyns, Mills, Bodinson, Dillehay, Wetterberg and Goldsmith dined on steak and crab cakes at the Historic Old Ebbits Grill in downtown Washington DC, and as you all may have already guessed, before heading home we toasted the Peace Corps, Chile, and our friendship repeatedly with way too much award-winning Chilean tinto.

Posted on October 1, 2011, in Leesburg, Virginia

Viva El Instituto Forestal!!

Tomorrow, May 5, 2011, in Santiago, Chile, there will be an event to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the Instituto Forestal, the Chilean government’s forests, forest products, and forest industries research center. 1961, as it turns out, was truly a year filled with optimism and “Big Ideas”. Visionary Chileans created the Instituto Forestal that year, and an equally progressive US President established the Peace Corps. Both institutions and the many fine people who have worked within these organizations have made transformational changes to our world, providing noteworthy benefits to the fine people of both countries.

During the 1960s, several very fortunate young foresters from the United States were chosen to participate in both enterprises, and were sent to Chile as Peace Corps Volunteers to work along side Chilean professionals at the Instituto Forestal. I was one of those fortunate few, whose lives were changed by that experience. We established intimate friendships that have lasted to this day. We contributed our small part to the growth of Chile’s forestry and wood products sectors, and consequently we share with our Chilean friends and colleagues a sense of deep pride that this sector has now become a mainstay in Chile’s vibrant economy. We have not always kept in contact with the Chileans with whom we lived and worked during those heady years of our youth, but because of our experience at the Instituto Forestal we have rejoiced in Chile’s successes, and suffered along at least in spirit during the difficult years.

For me, the Instituto Forestal occupies a special place because it was while I was working there that I first saw Ximena (now my partner of 41 years), in a photograph shown me by my colleague at the time, Joaquin (now married to Ximena’s sister Veronica). In fact, it was not just that picture, but the undercover work of Ximena’s aunt, Silvia, who worked in the library at the Instituto Forestal, that determined that Ximena’s and my path should converge.

The work I did at the Instituto Forestal as a Peace Corps Volunteer on ways to preserve Chilean wood for use in construction not only led to more and better research at the Instituto itself, but also served as the basic research for my Master of Science Degree at the State University of New York College of Environmental Sciences and Forestry after Ximena and I returned to the US in 1970.

For many Peace Corps Volunteers, our time at the Instituto Forestal, under the memorable guiding hand of Don Manuel Munoz, together with Don Mario Han, Don Moises Yudelevich, and Don Manuel Ortiz, was one of the best times of our lives. For this, and for the many fond memories of time we spent in Chile’s forests, laboratories, training centers and green and white “Instituto” vehicles travelling the spectacularly beautiful roads of Chile, we all join our Chilean colleagues today in celebrating the 50-year Anniversary of the Instituto Forestal.

Viva el bosque Chileno!
Viva el Instituto Forestal!
Viva Chile!

Written on May 4, 2011, in Leesburg, Virginia.

One Year After; Personal Observations of Recovery in Maule.

“We are never satisfied with a response to a disaster, because it is, after all, a disaster”.*

To retrace the route I took alone about a year ago, the day before the earthquake, Gerry and I left Dichato, drove inland a bit through Coelemu and Quirihue, and then headed north along the coast through Cobquecura, Buchupureo, Curanipe, and Pelluhue. Curanipe and Pelluhue, especially the areas right along the coastal road, are pretty much cleaned up of the mountains of debris left by the disaster. But permanent rebuilding of homes and stores is very, very slow. The area just on the outskirts of Pelluhue, called Mariscadero, where the fishermen and poor families lived, is still a desolate landscape, where very little progress has been made to resettle the area. Rebuilding is not being encouraged in the lowest areas, so anyone who chooses to rebuild in an area declared tsunami-prone will not benefit from bank loans or insurance, making it impossible for most people to rebuild in these areas. It will take many years for these towns to be anything other than disaster zones. Recovery is very, very slow.

We had to push on to Chanco, where we were going to meet up with my brother-in-law, Joaco, who along with his wife, Veronica, have a very special home that sits on a sand dune bluff overlooking the fishing village of Loanco, and the “Faro Carranza” (Lighthouse). We spent some time in Chanco, a rural town which had retained that classical Chilean colonial architecture of one-story, thick adobe-walled buildings all painted in earth colors, with tile roofs and beautiful courtyards within which chickens, horses, even cows and lots of dogs roamed pretty much unattended. But every time I have visited Chanco since the earthquake, and this time was no exception, more of these picturesque homes and stores have been demolished, with empty lots in their place waiting for some sort of structure to be put in the space.
I commented to Gerry when we entered the town that I thought that in 3 to 5 years this town would be back to some semblance of the old “look”, but probably with construction of bricks, cement, and wood, rather than adobe, but designed to give the feeling of the historical look. We talked about it a bit, but the situation of Chanco had made Gerry almost despondent and much less optimistic than I. He believes that this small town that once had a certain distinct and attractive architectural personality, in 3 to 5 years will be nothing more than a mish-mash of whatever types of structures people could throw together, some nice, some not so nice, but no underlying personality. I fear Gerry may be right. This part of Maule is extremely poor, and does not receive much attention from its own regional leaders, much less from Santiago.

We left Chanco and soon approached my favorite spot on the Central Chilean coast, the small fishing village of Loanco. This is where Dago and Maria had their restaurant, right on the edge of the pounding Pacific Ocean, and where about a dozen families reside to fish for “corvina”, “congrio” and recently mostly “merluza”, all delicious fish. Loanco is amazing; in it’s small, isolated way. In the year since the tsunami wiped out most of the boats, vehicles, and houses along the water, the fisherman have new boats and motors, and two new tractors to pull their boats out of the water.
They are slowly rebuilding their homes, and Dago and Maria’s restaurant, “La Roca”, is running at full speed, totally rebuilt smack in the same location where it was wiped out by a wave of water a year earlier.

Bigger and better, their building is nicer, the kitchen is newer, and the bathrooms are cleaner. The food is about the same. Not fantastic, just plain good. We stopped at the restaurant to say hello to Maria, who was still there at about 6 PM, and let her know we would be coming to “la Roca” for dinner at about 8. We then went up the road a bit and through the pastures across the tops of the dunes to reach Joaco’s place. Joaco was there, getting everything ready for us, so we immediately opened a bottle of Joaco’s brother-in-law’s best cabernet sauvignon wine, produced at the “Estrella” vineyard and winery he owns and manages several kilometers outside of Cauquenes. We had brought along some spicy Chilean “chorizo” laced with “merquen”, some creamy slightly aged “Chanco” cheese (most of which is no longer made in Chanco), and some freshly baked “pan amasado”, so we sat on the porch enjoying the panoramic sunset over the five-kilometer-long shoreline, and the Loanco fishing village, with the Faro Carranza in the background. We explained to Joaco what we had seen and heard the two prior days during our visits to Concepcion, Arauco, and Dichato and talked about the progress many are making to rebuild their lives. However, we had to admit we were pretty stunned by how much still remains to be done.


Then we went to “La Roca” for dinner. Joaco and I had “corvina a la plancha” (sautéed sea bass), and Gerry had “Congrio frito” (fried Kingclip, or conger eel). We washed it down with a simple bottle of Missiones de Rengo Sauvignon Blanc, a good, everyday dry wine found easily throughout the US and often served in social events in Chile, like weddings, receptions, and group dinners. It is a very good value, and when paired with Maria’s fresh fish at “La Roca’, contributed to a top notch meal. As we left La Roca, Joaco offered to show us the new fisherman’s building that was recently built where the old fish cleaning and equipment storage area used to stand.

This new establishment is really quite an accomplishment. If you check one of my earlier blog postings about Loanco, you will be reminded that several months ago there was an announcement that 5 or 6 functional but attractive buildings were being designed by a group of university architects, to be built in fishing villages along the Maule coast, establishing “La Ruta de Las Caletas” (The route of fishing Villages, copying the already successful “Rutas del Vino”, wine routes, throughout Chile). I recall being very skeptical that this project was ever going to materialize, but to my astonishment, and great satisfaction, the one in Loanco is already finished, and we had a tour of it that night after dinner. It remains to be seen if the restaurant included in the project to serve not just fishermen but also the public, will prosper, and if it does, will it draw clientele away from the two other restaurants in town, including Dago and Maria’s “La Roca”. But this new attractive structure is surely a source of pride for the town, for the fishermen and their families, and deserves high praise. “La Ruta de Las Caletas” may after all become a reality, keeping an important promise made to the poor fishermen in these villages immediately after the disaster a year ago.

Again Gerry, Joaco and I settled onto on the front porch of Joaco’s ocean-view home, and finished the evening off drinking a single malt scotch we had also brought along in our “traveler’s tool kit”, smoking small Cuban cigars Gerry finally released from the inside pocket of his jacket after much coaxing, but mostly absorbing the incessant thunder of the breaking surf on the shore below. Sleeping at Joaco’s place overlooking Loanco and the Faro Carranza is always a dream, be it because I always arrive there exhausted by the day’s activities, or from the Maule wine we always share on his porch, or the glass of scotch that often follows, or just the lulling sound of the surf, but sleep here is always profound and uninterrupted, and this night was no exception. We needed the rest after a day we began much earlier in Arauco.

We arose the next morning to a typical Chilean breakfast: sliced ham, fresh “quesillo”, toasted “pan amasado”, wild blackberry jam, and a hot cup of instant Nescafe with milk. I don’t know what it is about the instant Nescafe in Chile, but it is delicious. Maybe it is the small container woven out of “mimbre” that the can is presented in, or the fond memories of those breakfasts shared in southern Chile with my colleagues at the Instituto Forestal when I first explored southern Chile as a Peace Corps Volunteer, that makes the coffee taste so good. However, I have always suspected that Chilean Nescafe has something else besides coffee in it, maybe ground garbanzos, I don’t know for sure, but it would not surprise me if it was really a special mixture found only in Chile. It doesn’t seem to taste near as good anywhere else.

Anyway, we finished breakfast, and returned to Loanco to observe the arrival of the fishing boats after their all-night, or early morning fishing. To our surprise and their great satisfaction, the boats were arriving loaded with fish. The fishermen told us this had not been common over the past year, but that maybe, just maybe, the fish have returned after a year of very bad fishing in the waters especially affected by the tsunami.
Hopefully the fish are back and this type of take will last, but on this day everyone was very excited about the number of large “corvina” and “congrio colorado” they had caught. They even had a few of the flat-shaped “lenguado”, my favorite Chilean fish that over the past few years has become very dear, and very expensive now in Santiago restaurants. I like it best when Ximena lightly sautés fresh filets of “lenguado” in a bit of browned butter and chopped fresh parsley, and serves it with a bit of steamed broccoli, all splashed with fresh lemon juice and a pinch of black pepper. Oh yes, and a glass of Veramonte Sauvignon Blanc from the Casablanca Valley (screw top notwithstanding). But back to our visit to Maule.

Gerry and I had to get back to Santiago by the evening, but we still wanted to visit Constitucion, possibly the town most extensively affected by the 2010 earthquake and tsunami. Going through Los Pellines, the next fishing village going north from Loanco, we observed that they, too, were offloading a good catch of fish that day from several new boats with shining new motors. We also observed, from a distance, that their new “Ruta de Las Caletas” structure was also almost done and ready to serve the fishermen and visitors to the village.

Constitucion has been, since the CELCO pulp mill was built right smack on the town’s beautiful beach on the edge of town (but effectively right in town) in the early 1970s, an unattractive place that, in spite of the pervasive poverty in the area and the sickening smell of the pulping process still attracts tourists in the summer to its beaches and riverside. In fact, it was a group of unfortunate vacationers who lost their lives in the tsunami because they were camping on an island in the middle of the Maule river when the wall of water rushed up the river and over into the streets of downtown Constitucion. It is not obvious how Constitucion is going to lift itself up from this disaster. Attempts to expropriate the properties most susceptible along the river, so that homes are not rebuilt in those vulnerable areas have been met by strong civil opposition. Constitucion is also receiving a “Ruta de Las Caletas” pavilion, and we observed the progress they are making with that structure, but a model home, erected to announce the style of new subsidized housing being offered to people left homeless over a year ago, sits alone in the empty expanse that once was a vibrant albeit precarious and relatively rustic vacation spot.
Maybe there will be a “wave” of rebuilding in Constitucion, but it was not evident to us on the day we visited this unfortunate town.

We drove along the beach road, past the stretch where there used to be several typical seafood restaurants, but where everything had been washed away in the tsunami. When I visited here in September of 2010, just seven months after the disaster, there was no rebuilding yet, and it looked to me like there was not going to be any. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see several rebuilt restaurants, hastily put up probably to attend to the past summer’s visitors who habitually go to Constitucion from Talca and Curico, to spend the summer. We drove further down the road that hugs the shore for about three kilometers south of Constitucion, ending at a small port facility. About halfway down this road is where, the year prior to the earthquake, my friend Flick and I spent a night in one of “Willy” and Javiera’s cabins that sit right on the rocks a few meters above sea level. When I returned here last September,
the property was barren, only the outline of the swimming pool distinguishable from the road above where I stopped my car and observed the devastation. But now, these young entrepreneurs have begun in earnest to rebuild their vacation business, “bigger and better” than before, Guillermo confidently boasts.
They are living in two of the cabins themselves, until their new home can be built on the site, and have a half dozen cabins finished and equipped, receiving visitor full time now.
They have big plans for a full restaurant on the site where their home was before, so guests do not have to drive all the way back into Constitucion for a meal, problematic especially in the dark on foggy nights common on this part of the Chilean coast. I must admit, I admire Willy’s and Javiera’s tenacity. In a few short months they will have rebuilt a very attractive place where travelers can spend one or two nights, on the rocky ledge right above where the breakers crash. Oh yes, in case you wondered, Javiera did mention that they have constructed a foot path straight out the back of the property, and up the hill where in a very quick few minutes anyone staying or living here can get to safe, high ground, should there be another tsunami like the last one. On the morning of the earthquake, Guillermo and Javiera gathered up their children, several guests sleeping in the cabins, and some valuables, and escaped the scene in several jeeps, up a road that leads away from the shore and up to higher ground. Their description of what they saw when they returned to the place where their home sat just an hour earlier, does not make a very convincing endorsement for spending a night or two in their cabins. But the spectacular seascape you have from the veranda of each cabin, or even from the beds if you open the curtains wide enough, is unparalleled. For many, it will be well worth the risk. Even Gerry claims he is going to return there with Maria Elena and spend a couple of days enjoying the scene. I’m not sure about that though. (Gerry after all is the guy who spent several nights sleeping in his car instead of his 8th floor apartment in Santiago, traumatized by the continual shaking that went on after the big quake!).

But it was time for us to leave the suffering coastal towns of Bio Bio and Maule, and return inland along the Maule River to join the Pan-American Highway at San Javier. I have developed a deep attraction to these friendly, hard working, mostly poor coastal people, and each time I visit my respect deepens for the way they face their plight.

A year before, the earthquake had destroyed much of Chile’s historical colonial buildings, especially those built of “adobe”. And prior to that, each seismic event over the years, and each period of civil strife have progressively destroyed historical monuments like churches, municipal offices, hacienda homesteads, and even some whole small villages (like Lolol and Chanco). The loss of important pieces of Chile’s heritage was great this time also. One old, beautiful building which was damaged this time was the main house of the Casa Silva vineyard and winery, used before the earthquake as an elegant Bed and Breakfast (or more like an Inn, I would say). When we stopped here right after the earthquake, we were told the owners could not repair the stately building, and were instead going to build a new hotel out near the polo field where they have a nice restaurant amidst the vineyards. Then, a few months later, we heard that, no, they were going to refurbish the old home, and open the Hotel again before the end of 2010. So Gerry and I decided we needed to check this out. Just off the Pan-American Highway near San Fernando, the Casa Silva estate is a rambling establishment of whitewashed adobe buildings, mostly storage barns, surrounded by perfectly groomed vineyards with the main house nestled in the middle of it all. True to what we had been told, there were guests, and the place was humming with activity, horseback rides in the vineyards, riding lessons at the polo field, wine tasting at the sales room, and precisely the day we visited, the beginning of the harvest of the Carmenere grapes that have become so popular in Chile and throughout the world. We sat at a small table at the polo field, lunched on a salad of mixed greens and fresh goat cheese, and washed it down with a glass of their Sauvignon blanc they have named “Dona Dominga”. So Casa Silva appears to be back in business just a year after the quake.

The setting at Casa Silva is truly idyllic. Of course it is this way because hard working entrepreneurs, who also have access to healthy amounts of financial resources, have invested their sweat and their treasury into creating one of Chile’s finest agribusinesses. In just three days, Gerry and I had seen and talked with many hardworking Chileans who were, in their own way, trying to remake their lives, improve the prospects for their children, and rebuild their communities. Some had access to resources, some had only their own hard work and ingenuity to rely on. But all of them show incredible resilience in the f ace of extreme loss afflicted just one year ago, and they exhibit optimism about the future I’m not sure I would be able to conjure up were I to have suffered what they did. But they are also still Chilean, and they are going to continue to be openly critical and demanding of their leaders, and rightfully so. It is not too much to ask that everyone, especially the movers and shakers who work and live disproportionately concentrated in Santiago, expand special efforts to speed up and strengthen the rebuilding of the towns and villages in Bio Bio and Maule, that were so devastated on February 27, 2011.

*MaryCatherine Arbour; Harvard Medical School.

Written in Leesburg, Virginia, on April 30, 2011.

One Year After; Personal Observations of Recovery in Bio Bio

“We are never satisfied with a response to a disaster, because it is, after all, a disaster”.*

Driving down the Pan-American highway across the Maipo Valley, as you leave the snarl and smog-producing Santiago traffic, you can’t help but feel the tension release from the back of our neck, your sinuses begin to clear, and your mind begin to focus on browning pastures, yellowing Alamo lined country roads, and verdant fruit-laden vineyards that stretch as far as the eye can see until they reach the slopes of the now-covered Andes Mountains to the East and the lower coastal range to the west. Gerry, who is traveling with me on this trip, was my boss when I was part of the team directing the Peace Corps in Chile in the late 1970s. He and I got along quite well then, and still have a close relationship for several reasons, not least of which are that we both have Chilean wives, we both enjoy an occasional cigar while people-watching on the streets of Santiago (or any other place, for that matter), and we both spend inordinate amounts of time searching for the perfect meal and the perfect glass of wine (The search is complicated by the requirement that they have to be reasonably priced.). We were going to spend three days touring the coastal area of Chile most affected by the 2010 earthquake and tsunami, but on this day as we continued past the Maipo River Valley through the Cachapoal Valley and into the Colchagua Valley we diverted our attention momentarily to the incredible progress the Chilean wine industry has made, especially in the last twenty years, and especially in these valleys we were driving through. As we passed the sign indicating the turnoff to Casa Silva Vineyards, near San Fernando, we agreed to stop for a visit on our return in two days to Santiago.



We continued south, through the Maule Valley, one of the most traditional wine producing areas of Chile, and into the Itata Valley where we turned west, bypassing Chillan, to drive to Concepcion. The drive from Chillan to Concepcion brought back unsettling memories of the morning I left Concepcion, right after the quake, in a successful attempt to reach Ximena and her mother who were up in the foothills of the Andes enjoying the hot springs at the Panimavida resort. On this day, though, there were very few signs of earthquake damage along this road as we approached Concepcion, but I still recall vividly how difficult it had been to pass along this road only a year earlier, avoiding meter-wide cracks in the pavement, collapsed bridges, and electric lines and trees down across the road. It was all complicated by the fact that there was no cell phone communication or gas pumps operating for cars, trucks and busses.

As we entered greater Concepcion, past the airport and the turnoff to Talcahuano, and as we entered the city center, the remnants of disaster I expected to see were not as obvious or visible. Concepcion was teeming with people, mostly students because Concepcion is a major university center.
We wanted to get to Arauco that afternoon, at least an hour drive further south of Concepcion along the coast, but we took a few minutes to stop by the Alonso de Ercilla Hotel where I spent the night of the earthquake a year before. Surprisingly to me, it is operating as if nothing had happened. I introduced myself, and quickly related to the clerk at the counter that I had been there the night of the earthquake, and year earlier. He told me the night clerk, who would have been on the job that night (and who helped me rescue my car from beneath the adobe wall that had fallen on it) But we moved on instead of waiting, so I will have to return another day to this hotel to find out what eventually happened to everyone I spent a few anxious hours with in the lobby of the hotel that morning in Concepcion. There were still buildings throughout the city with signs of damage, and some empty lots where obviously there had been buildings before, now demolished and taken away; but I found the city of Concepcion, on the surface, pretty normal. That is not how I remember it that early morning a year ago as I walked the dark streets, hearing the anguished cries of frightened and injured people, the central plaza filled with groups of people in shock, and the smoke filled sky from the fires around town.

I have not visited Talcahuano, the port city that suffered extensively from the tsunami, so I have no first hand observations to make about that. Talcahuano presents an important chapter in the tsunami story, due to its closeness to the epicenter of the earthquake and because it is the site of much of the Chilean navy’s installations and ships. Not knowing about the recovery of Talcahuano is a shortcoming I plan to address soon, on a future trip into the Bio Bio region.

Arauco (where we visited Naya, the widow of my old friend Enrique) showed no signs of the earthquake or the tsunami, and we were told very little damage had occurred there, except some damage to the beach area. Gerry and I decided to drive further out the coast road towards Punta lavapie, where Enrique had taken me in 1967 for my first encounter with the large Chilean mussels named “cholgas”. We only got as far as Tubul (or Tuvul), a small fishing village on the Bahia de Llico, located slightly up an “estero” and reachable only by crossing two low bridges. As we crossed these one-lane bridges we realized they were new, and possibly only temporary bridges. We passed an earie spot on the outskirts of town where the villagers had placed an old fishing boat, surrounded by hundreds of white crosses in memory of past deaths.
Gerry and I thought maybe they were deaths from the tsunami, because as we looked ahead at the village of Tubul, it was obvious the town had been essentially wiped out by the tsunami.
It was easy to imagine how the rising waters had washed up the “estero”, over the shallow beach where the fishing boats were either anchored or beached, destroyed the bridges and obliterated much of the town. It was still pretty bad a year after, so we were reticent to explore very closely. However, we noticed there were a dozen or so boats out along the shore, out at the mouth of the “estero”, unloading something onto the shore and then into refrigerated trucks. We parked the car and walked down to where the activity was.

I spoke with a young man who was receiving and weighing large bags of shellfish from the boats. He explained that the boats gather a round clam-like mollusk that I think he called a “diquibe”, and an elongated one, that projects a long rubbery tube, they call “navahuelas”, shaped like a straight razor as the name suggests. Since this visit, while writing this blog, I have been trying to verify the name of the clams, and no one I have consulted with has ever heard the name “diquibe”, so while I will keep consulting about this, I will call them “almejas”, the most common term in Chile for clams, and assume the young man I spoke with either had a speech impediment, or he was pulling my leg, in which case he and his buddies are probably still laughing at the “gringo” who is probably out looking for “the nonexistent “diquibe”.
Anyway, They load these sacks of shellfish into trucks and take them, according to this young man, to the island of Chiloe where they are processed by large seafood operations and shipped to Japan, China, and other Pacific rim seafood-consuming countries. The day we were there they had a very good catch. However, the young man sadly described how the town was still reeling from the devastation, with many homes still only patched together and life proceeding at a precarious pace. I could not help think that the bridge, of course, had to be rebuilt immediately to free the town of the isolation it suffered after the tsunami washed out the bridges. The companies that buy this valuable seafood from the poor fishing families who reside in Tuvul surely pressured the government agencies to rebuild the bridges so they can get their trucks in and the seafood out. But I wonder how much pressure is being applied now to get basic services back to the town and help rebuild the fishermen’s homes in a safe place.

We drove back to Arauco, to a small, comfortable hotel where we spent the night, but not before searching out the only restaurant we thought could provide us with the meal we deserved after such a long and eventful day; The El Vergel Restaurant. We were easily talked into a steaming plate of “cazuela de vacuno”, beef soup-like stew that happens to be an iconic Chilean comfort food I love as do most people who have ever experienced this dish on a cold, rainy day in southern Chile. I never embark upon a trip like this without a good supply of wine and bottled mineral water in the trunk of the car (sort of an “emergency” kit). So I took out a bottle of Lapostolle Cuvee Alexandre Cabernet sauvignon from their Apalta vineyard, paid the owner of the El Vergel restaurant a $2.00 corkage fee, and Gerry and I enjoyed what is one of the most pleasurable meals you can get south of the equator.

The next day we had promised ourselves we would try to see the collapsed apartment building in Concepcion, which sat on the rim of the Bio Bio River until February 27, 2010, when it split in two and, filled with its terrified residents, toppled over in the earthquake. As we crossed the bridge into Concepcion, we luckily discovered a gas station situated right next to that building, so we stopped, got out and took a good close look.
It is truly frightening to imagine what it must have been like inside this building as it fell. Lawsuits have been filed, and in the meantime, this ugly emblem of the 2010 earthquake adorns most publications and films about the disaster. And it just sits there, shadowed by two much taller towers that did not fail that day and which taunt their fallen neighbor as the powers that be, and the courts, determine who will take the blame for the deaths and financial loss from the “Alto Rio” apartment building.

I knew the next place we were to visit, Dichato, would arouse deep emotions, and it did. This coastal vacation town was among the most devastated towns in the 2010 tsunami. Probably because of the formation of the coast and the ocean floor at that point, and the location of the epicenter of the earthquake that caused the tsunami, Dichato was wiped out, at least an area of four blocks deep and ten to twelve blocks long of houses, and a neighboring fishing village simply vanished.
I still wonder what I might have experienced if, as originally planned, I had spent the night of the quake in that town, especially because I had been tempted to search for a small cabin right on the street that borders the beach, with the best view of the water. As Gerry and I drove the length of this street, back and forth a couple of times, I had a haunting vision of the woman whom I saw that day, as I passed, who I thought might rent me one of the cabins she obviously had available. I can’t help but wonder where she was that fateful morning, what happened to her, did she get out, did she get out and then come back too soon, only to be swept away by the second or third rush of high water that killed those unfortunate folks who thought the danger had passed.
I tried to identify the place where she had been standing that day when I passed, but only remnants of a few of the stone walls remain, making it virtually impossible for me to identify that specific place along that road now.

Gerry had noticed a sign for the “Don Eduardo” restaurant, and we needed a break, so we drove down a dirt road which bordered the shore noticeably several meters above the level of the water. We wanted to have a coffee and, if possible, talk to someone about what had been going on in Dichato over the past year. “Don Eduardo’s” was a lovely, rustic seaside place like so many along the Chilean coast. A place we could have sat for hours if we had more time. Operated by Ricardo and his wife (we think), Ricardo explained to us how the morning of the earthquake, he was in charge of one of two restaurants (he referred to them as “boites”, suggesting more drinking than eating), owned by the same person who now owns Don Eduardo’s restaurant. The “Boite” was filled with young revelers when the quake hit, but they all immediately left the place and ran uphill to a safe place. According to Ricardo, everyone who lives in Dichato knows that’s what you do with a quake the size of the 8.8 one that hit that night.
He remembers that after awhile, hearing radio reports that the Intendente in Concepcion and the President in Santiago had declared that the threat of a tsunami had passed, some in their group went back down into town to retrieve their personal things, but Ricardo and most of the others did not return to the town. The unfortunate ones who did return back down to sea level were caught in another wave of high water, and many perished, including one of Ricardo’s friends and daughter. It is this specific case of erroneous warnings and unfortunate consequent deaths that continues to haunt the top levels of the Bachelet administration and is the basis of serious controversy and complicated lawsuits.

Ricardo, very anxious to tell his story, explained that all the properties within 20 meters of the retaining wall at the upper edge of the beach all along Dichato’s waterfront have been expropriated by the government, and will not be available for rebuilding residences.
Temporary housing was provided to everyone who was left homeless and who was willing to reside in a “media-agua” village on the top of the hill leading out of Dichato to the south, and payment has been made to those whose homes were expropriated. Construction will start soon to build new permanent homes for those who were expropriated. Ricardo and his wife and small daughter moved initially into the temporary village, but now only Ricardo is staying there. He sent his wife and daughter to Chillan to stay with relatives, due to the crowded arrangements in the temporary housing, the shared bathroom facilities with three other families, and the unsafe conditions for his young daughter. The Pinera government surely sees it advantageous to get it right in Dichato, after the terrible response in that community immediately after the quake. Dichato may end up as a valuable case study on tsunami emergency preparedness and response, with both positive and negative lessons to be learned.

While Ricardo was telling us the story of Dichato, we snacked on a couple of “empanadas fritas de mariscos” (fried seafood turnovers), which were delicious. The mixture of chopped clams, mussels, and something the Chileans call “piures” (sea squirts in English), spiced with onions and a bit of Chilean hot sauce, wrapped up in a thin layer of tasty dough, then crispy deep fried, sure hit the spot. We tried to satisfy an uneasy feeling we both had in our guts, with these “empanadas”. But, although they were delicious, it was impossible to cruise up and down the desolate streets of Dichato, and listen to Ricardo’s story, and not be left with a terribly empty feeling at the thought of what happened in that unsuspecting town the morning of February 27, 2010.

*MaryCatherine Arbour; Harvard Medical School.

Written in Leesburg, Virginia on April 30, 2011.

The Politics of Disaster Relief in Chile

Arriving in Chile this year for our annual visit, I began immediately to ask family and friends how the reconstruction was going a year after the terrible earthquake and tsunami that hit the central coast of Chile on February 27, 2010. I perused the press to see what was being reported. My first impression was that at least in Santiago, reconstruction did not seem to be much of an issue. People told me “Things are getting better”, “Reconstruction is slow, but it has only been a year”. I was disappointed to sense relative indifference in the views of most of the people I spoke with, but after all, since Chile’s big quake their attention had understandably shifted to the more satisfying miraculous rescue of the 33 trapped miners in the north near Copiapo. Also, the disastrous quake and tsunami had just occurred in Japan as we arrived in Chile, the effects of which were now filling the front pages of the papers.

So, to find more information on the recovery, I accepted an invitation from the Director of the Harvard University David Rockefeller Center, in Santiago, and attended a one-day meeting of Harvard faculty and representatives of Chilean governmental and academic institutions involved in earthquake response and reconstruction. The academics presented very interesting analyses, proposals and programs to address institutional shortcomings in the government’s and communities’ responses to the quake and the tsunami. Sociologists and health experts from Harvard presented very impressive plans for affected communities to take their own recovery and future in their own hands and proceed to rebuild their even in the absence of the desired level of support from government organizations. Much of the Harvard experience on this subject was gained working on Katrina recovery on the Gulf Coast of the US, which does seem to present enough similarities to suggest lessons relevant to Chile. Everyone agreed how essential it is to rebuild the trust in institutions responsible for early warning and first response in disaster situations like what Chile experienced. All very interesting, and all quite practical.

A representative of the Ministry of Housing and Urbanization (MINVU) presented details from the “Plan de Reconstruccion MINVU”, developed in August 2010 (and updated in January 2011) based on the precept that “It is impossible to pretend that the Government will reconstruct everything, or provide directives from a centralized plan in Santiago on the way reconstruction should take place; it must be the same affected communities, along with a large infusion of assistance and protection of the State, that will determine what paths they take for their own reconstruction”. It is an impressive plan, which you can see on the MINVU website, www.minvu.cl. Just a few months after the disaster, this very comprehensive plan has been put together with the important underlying premise that not only would the most affected areas be rebuilt, but the rebuilding would produce better and safer facilities. This approach, of course, takes longer and costs more than simply replacing what was destroyed, a reality that seems to have escaped many critics of the government’s performance.

The MINVU plan is impressive, and the MINVU presenter was extremely upbeat and optimistic about its ultimate implementation. (This is an important point, because it is not uncommon that Chilean organizations produce very sophisticated and technically high quality plans, only to come up short in the actual on-the-ground implementation.)

However, I was really attracted to a passionate presentation in the Harvard seminar by Mario Waissbluth, Director of the Centro de Sistemas Publicos, Universidad de Chile, who stated outright that as long as Chile continues to operate in an extremely centralized way, and increasingly so, attempts to prepare better systems for disaster preparedness, response and recovery will be for naught. Without significant empowerment at the local level throughout the length of Chile (and especially because of the length of Chile), the modernization of disaster preparedness and response will not happen as fast or as completely as it should. Waissbluth cited several cases that manifest the problem of extreme centralization of decision-making: Unsatisfactory response and still unresolved rebuilding or relocation of Chaiten, the village destroyed by a volcanic eruption in Aysen in 2008; Failure of the municipalization of the public education system due to serious understaffing of schools at that level; and the Curepto Hospital scandal in 2007 where a new hospital was allowed to be dedicated by President Bachelet and opened for patients without installing a whole series of basic and necessary equipment. He claims these problems stem directly from the fact that Regional institutions are weaker and staffed with less-trained and less-prepared employees than is the case with their sister offices in Santiago. These shortcomings are compounded by the fact that Ministry offices in the regions are not coordinated either with their central offices in Santiago or with each other in the same region, due to weak leadership in the regions and low priority and a paucity of resources targeted on the modernization of regional capabilities.

Waissbluth has written a lot about “La Economia Politica de la Descentralizacion en Chile”. He is a good source if you want to dig deeper into this subject. Decentralization “plans” have been around in Chile at least since the mid-1970s. It was then that the Pinochet government established the Regions of the Country, and announced a very impressive plan to move resources, authority, and decision making to the Regions. Not much happened then, or since. This subject has always seemed to me to be one of those good news/bad news things. The good news is that if Chile were to decentralize their economy, their educational and employment opportunities, the authorities to develop, build, and regulate more aspects of their lives, Chile would be stronger. The bad news? They probably aren’t going to do it.

What Harvard is doing in Chile, many other institutions from all over the world are also doing, to contribute to Chile’s immediate recovery. Some are assisting the Chileans look ahead and rebuild a better future. Some have fielded small, specific research and field activities, demonstrations that will hopefully expand in scope as they are proven to work. These specific demonstration and field research projects are in themselves valuable, but it seems to me that big policy changes are needed in Chile that can affect disaster preparedness and response on a large scale across the country. An institution like Harvard can and should use the influence it has to promote transformational public policy changes. Making a strong case for decentralization of public sector authorities and resources in Chile could be a huge contribution to Chile’s overall development. Harvard not only has its renowned brand as leverage, but many of the Officials in this Chilean government have studied at Harvard and maintain connections with that prestigious institution, giving this US institution a unique entry point to make a difference.

Even though the public in Santiago did not seem too interested in the reconstruction of earthquake damage, it was obvious from my perch in Santiago, that earthquake and tsunami response and reconstruction were, in fact, at the top of the politicians list of priorities. The opposition members in Congress were fast and furiously looking for reasons to accuse members of the governing coalition of incompetence and corruption in managing the reconstruction program. The opposition had been stirred up by the long and contentious process recently completed to obtain approval from Congress for the special package of reconstruction funding. So they focused on questionable actions and controversial statements made by the hard charging, swashbuckling “Intendente” of Bio Bio Region, based in Concepcion, and by the time I had left Chile in mid-April, she had been forced from office. Still licking her wounds, she and her supporters were figuring out how to recover and return to the fray, possibly as a candidate for Senator in the next election. She had been terribly aggressive in her criticism of the prior government’s and her predecessor’s actions in response to the disaster, right from the day she was appointed to her position by President Pinera. In one short year, she has fallen victim to the same accusations she had leveled against others.

Later the same month, the Minister of MINVU (who authored the impressive plan described above) resigned in a rain of accusations over her performance. Her situation was not helped when El Mercurio reported that as of the end of March, 13 months after the destruction, only 3,000 permanent housing units had been built, out of the planned 60,000 to be constructed on sites owned by victims of the earthquake and tsunami. Sure, there are reasons for the delays, like sorting out legal titles of land, processing subsidy payments for new homes and upgrading coastal zoning and building standards to avoid a repeat of tsunami destruction. But, progress this slow rightfully is drawing criticism and public pressure on the government to perform better. After all, this is an administration that came into power in part due to their purported ability to “get things done”. There is an interesting set of pictures on page 130 of the MINVU plan mentioned above: the first is a photo of the Nataly Gillmore family receiving reconstruction program subsidy number 100,000 in December of 2010 accompanied by President Pinera, the Intendente of Bio Bio, and the Minister of Housing. The second picture shows the Gillmore family in front of their new home in Cobquecura, just a month later, standing alone with no officials present. Someone seems to have been clairvoyant in orchestrating the second picture, for so shortly after the picture was taken; two of the three officials were already gone from their positions. The third, President Pinera, well, he will probably stay around for awhile longer.

Politics in Chile occasionally looks a lot like politics in the US. Unfortunately, unconditional, mindless partisanship replaces rational thought and decision making in Chile also. This debilitating partisanship led some congressional members of the opposition to criticize harshly Pinera’s decision to put out a fairly aggressive tsunami warning for the Chilean coastal towns and cities after the earthquake in Japan. They suggested he was playing politics by hyping the impending danger and unnecessarily alarming the population in a cynical attempt to convince Chileans (to his political benefit), that his administration’s approach to vigilance and disaster preparedness was going to be superior in comparison to the faulty tsunami alarm process back in February 2010 under President Bachelet. These criticisms of Pinera’s warning were eventually somewhat muted when it turned out that some coastal areas, Dichato among them, did flood considerably as a result of the Japan earthquake (so did coastal areas in California). Not what most people would call a “tsunami”, but flooding that warranted limited evacuation nonetheless.

A Chilean friend a long time ago introduced me to the Chilean term “chaqueteo”. The term is used to depict the action of switching sides on an issue easily (literally, quickly turning your reversible jacket around, or putting it on, taking it off, depending upon what seems most acceptable in the moment). In this case, first criticize Bachelet for not giving the Tsunami warning, and then criticize Pinera for giving a warning. “Chaqueteros” abound...

But sometimes, notably, politics in Chile it is different. Very soon after the disaster in Chile in late February 2010, the head of the Chilean disaster relief organization ONEMI, was fired by outgoing President Bachelet. It is pretty clear that she and others responsible for being on top of the public warning and information systems in a natural disaster did not do their job on February 27, 2010. Nor had they done their job prior to this event, to prepare the country and its citizens for an eventual catastrophe like the earthquake and tsunami. So, she was fired. Distinct from the notorious George Bush “Good job, Brownie” moment during the Katrina debacle, in Chile there was no “Good job, Carmencita!!” moment; she was just fired!

Now, a year later, a series of investigations are being held to determine just what is going on now with the reconstruction (leading to the two resignations mentioned earlier), and what actually happened at the moment of the disaster at 3:34 AM on February 27, 2010. In part these investigations are necessary for healthy learning and growing, but also because there are pending accusations and lawsuits linked to lives and property lost possibly as a result of direct actions taken or not taken by authorities at the time.

Ex-President Bachelet has at least once returned to Chile to be questioned by a public prosecutor who is investigating the deaths of 156 Chileans who died in the tsunami on that fateful day. And all the officials, civilian and military, involved are also being questioned, and their testimony is or will be reported publicly. We shall follow this to see how it evolves, but the political process will surely prove what one eloquent Harvard professor stated in the seminar I attended in Santiago, to the effect that “We are never satisfied with a response to a disaster, because it is, after all, a disaster”. The question is, can the political process in Chile get beyond partisan recriminations and posturing, to instead address the challenge of turning dissatisfaction onto healthy learning and growing.

I now realized, however, after several days of searching for information on the recovery process in Chile, that at this point what I really needed to do was to get out of Santiago, to go see for myself what was going on in Concepcion, Dichato, Loanco, Chanco, Pelluhue, Curanipe, and Constitucion. These were places I visited just prior to the quake, just after the disaster, and again most recently in September 2010. So, with my friend Gerry (Flick, my usual fact-finding partner decided to spend his vacation on the Gulf coast of the US, fishing and partying, instead of his usual escape to Chile) we traveled south to first visit an old friend in Arauco (see prior posting, NAYA), and then do some earthquake/tsunami reconstruction fact finding and observation. That report follows soon, I promise, in the next posting on this Blog.

Mick and Cece in Chile

A year ago, Ximena and I waited expectantly in Santiago, Chile, for the two-week visit of our friends Mick and Cece. Mick is a friend from college and a Delta Upsilon fraternity brother of mine. Cece is a saint, mainly for staying with Mickey all these years, but also because she is a lovely hostess at their home in Roslyn, NY, where Ximena and I have stayed several times while visiting our son David and his family who also live on Long Island. Their trip to Chile was postponed for a year because of the earthquake, but in spite of the fact that Chile has continued to shake and rumble with normal tremors and aftershocks to the major quake last year, Mick and Cece stayed committed to their trip to Chile, and arrived in Santiago one sunny Saturday morning in March of this year. What follows is a short review of their visit:

For a day and a half they rested up from the long plane ride from JFK to Santiago.

Mick went shopping. He helped Cece shop. We drank good Chilean wine. Then, we took off and we visited vineyards. They stayed in an old B&B in the hills of Valparaiso and took in the quaint sights of that funky old city.

They drank pisco sours at the Chiringuito Restaurant in Zapallar. This is not Mick. It is a Chilean pelican that liked Mick enough to pose for him on a rock next to our table. They enjoyed the picturesque views of the coastal vacation town of Zapallar. We then drove half way down the Pan American highway into the heart of the indigenous homelands of the Araucarians, and shopped in the Temuco market. We walked the shore of Lake Caburgua, well into the Andes mountains where both the past and present Presidents of Chile have their vacation homes. We drank more wine. Actually, we drank wine most of the time, when we were not drinking pisco sours. We awoke one morning to a cloudless day and drove up the side of Villarrica volcano, still active and smoking. Mickey bought three bulls carved out of native Chilean wood, hoping they would influence the US stock market upon their arrival back on Long Island. One was not quite finished, so we waited while the carver placed a set of huge wooden balls on one of Mick’s bulls. We had pisco sours at sunset on the lawn of the Hotel Antumalal, one of the prettiest places in Chile. We then drove back north, into the Colchagua Valley where Mick made two friends at the B&B we stayed in. He was not as successful befriending the nice lady who owns and runs the place. We visited the award winning Lapostolle vineyard. And tasted their best premium wine, Clos Apalta. And finally, we sent them on their way, after two weeks of camaraderie, some political bickering, and lots of fun and good times, back to the US with memories of wonderful Chilean wine, Miles and miles of beautiful vineyards, And lovely Andean sunsets.