Finally, a night in Dichato

It was a little over three years ago that my plan to spend a night in the small, tidy coastal village of Dichato was frustrated when I decided instead to continue on to a hotel a few kilometers further south in Chile's third largest city, Concepción.  What transpired that night I have documented in of the first postings in this Blog and several updates subsequently through the next 3 years.  Dichato was destroyed by the tsunami that accompanied the tremendous earthquake the morning of February 27, 2010, and I escaped by a hair being part of that scene. Still, my hotel in Concepción suffered considerable damage and in the process provided me with a frightening experience I hope never to repeat, but one that has tied me emotionally to the people of the affected areas of the Maule and Bío Bío regions of Chile.

Dichato from site of new homes for tsunami victims

Much has been written about Dichato's recovery; it is the poster child in a way for disaster recovery in Chile.  Totally destroyed, relief was slow to the small town, until the affected population, desperate for shelter to face the imminent winter, took matters into their own hands and blocked the main road connecting Concepción and the rest of the country to a wealthy vacation development, Pingueral, a few kilometers to the north of Dichato.  Pingeral was relatively untouched by the tsunami that destroyed Dichato, but these more well off and powerful inhabitants of Pingueral were unable to reach their homes and felt threatened by the precarious and unsightly camps set up for the homeless.  So, being more connected to the new Piñera government than the residents of Dichato, they pressured the recently installed government agency directors in charge of the relief effort to provide help immediately to Dichato.  This pressure, plus unsettling news reports of the desperate situation of one of the most affected towns that reached the capital city, caused a major effort to "fix Dichato".

Because of the fact that I planned to stay, but did not, that fated night in Dichato three years ago, I have tried to follow the recovery process in this small village, a task made easier by my close relationship with Ned Strong, the Director of Harvard's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies regional office in Santiago, Chile, through which several community based disaster recovery programs named RecuperaChile are being implemented in Dichato and two other surrounding towns affected by the 2010 earthquake and tsunami.  For details see http://www.recuperachile.cl/#!home/c5xg .

So when I returned to Chile this year, I was thrilled by Ned's immediate agreement to accompany me to Dichato, to see first hand what the situation is for the town, 80% destroyed (16 reported deaths), and the 370 families left homeless.  We were hosted in Dichato by Dr. Martín Zilic, who owns an old home in the center of Dichato which, interestingly enough, was not affected by the tsunami due to its location on a small raised area around which the tsunami waters chose to advance inland.  Dr. Zilic, a surgeon who has held several important political positions over the past 20 years, is an advisor to the Harvard disaster relief projects in Dichato.

Martín guided us around Dichato.  First, we walked along the newly inaugurated bay side pedestrian walkway constructed along the entire beach over which the tsunami roared that morning to destroy the town.

New pedestrian walkway along beach

  The two blocks of homes closest to the shore that were totally destroyed have been condemned, their owners compensated, and plans for a community park and sporting activity area are to be implemented this year.  We visited the roadside site of the main encampment where the temporary structures for the homeless eventually were  established  after the event.  Life in this encampment was tough, in part because it was hurried to be established before the winter rain

Fortified walkway

and cold set in, but also because it was set up from the start to be temporary, with very fragile construction and community instead of individual services (water, bathrooms).  Security was weak, and many who had options removed their children, especially girls, to homes of relatives or friends in other localities.  So these three years have been difficult for the residents of this temporary village. 

Now, three new housing sites, new neighborhoods in fact, have been established on the outskirts of Dichato, one an apartment complex near the water and the others on hills above town.  Reportedly 75% of the homeless have obtained their new homes through government provided subsidies and these new neighborhoods are being finalized with paved roads, parks for children, and areas for commercial businesses.

New homes for victims on the hill behind Dichato

New homes

New homes

Two smaller neighboring fishing villages, Villarrica to the north and Coliumo to the south, share the Coliumo Bay with Dichato (and the wealthier Pingueral complex), and except for Pingueral, were also greatly affected by the tsunami.  Facilitated by Martín's familiarity with inhabitants of these villages, we observed closely one of the projects to replace the destroyed fishermen's homes with a model of wooden homes built at water's edge on concrete and metal stilts, copying the picturesque "palafitos" characteristic to Castro, the vibrant capitol city of the grand island of Chiloé more than one thousand kilometers south of Santiago. 

In the Villarrica village, we visited the new restaurant  Don Mino, rebuilt with a lot of determination, hard work, and a loan from the government development organization CORFO.  Don Mino thinks the homes on stilts "are an embarrassment to our community,
forced on them, shortly after the tsunami, by an aggressive, well meaning, but tone deaf politician from Concepción."


Don Mino's Restaurant



Ned, Don Mino, and Dave

He, on the other hand, claims to have resisted the pressure to rebuild in a certain way, but still obtained the government subsidized loan and built his new restaurant his way; and he seems to be doing very well. 



Homes on stilts in Villarrica Village

Home/restaurant on stilts in Coliumo Village

It is pretty clear just by looking, that the stilt homes in Villarrica Village are nowhere near as integrated into the village as the ones in Coliumo Village.  The idea to build these homes on stilts surely was one of those "imported" ideas, probably from someone who doesn't live in these villages, nor ever will.  The idea certainly did not come from anyone over 60 years old, for to get into these homes you have to climb a long, steep set of stairs.  My guess is these curious structures will end up being B and B type rental units for city folks who want to spend a few days with a fishing village view.

Filled with questions after visiting the area, we returned to Martín's home and spent the evening talking about the difficulties the outgoing Bachelet government faced to respond to this disaster and the way the Piñera government has managed the huge recovery program over the past three years.  It is fair to say that for years the Chilean government had seriously neglected creating the necessary disaster preparedness and response institutions an earthquake prone country like Chile requires.  So Bachelet's response was limited by the inadequacy of her country's institutions, and the record shows that some people died as a result of the lack of timely information regarding the threat of a tsunami.  As well, it can be argued that the strained relations between the Bachelet government and the Chilean military, a carryover condition from the period of the military dictatorship, resulted in a delay in calling in the necessary uniformed forces to maintain order and prevent looting and other crimes in the most vulnerable neighborhoods, especially in Concepción and Talcahuano.

It is also fair to recognize that in many dimensions, Piñera's approach to rebuilding the affected areas in three short years has been remarkable, especially rebuilding the important physical infrastructure of highways and bridges, basic services of energy and water, schools, health clinics, and residences for the homeless. Of special note is the speed with which facilities were made available for school children to enter classes near the start of the school year shortly after the quake. 

While there are still criminal charges pending against the then Intendente of the Bío Bío Region (Bachelet appointee) and the Chief Commander of the Navy in the same region for their role and responsibility to provide the public with information regarding the threats the population faced that morning of the earthquake and tsunami, it is interesting that in the recent local elections held in Chile a far greater number of candidates aligned with political parties sympathetic to the Bachelet governing coalition were elected to contested positions than those associated with the Piñera government.  A general conclusion, albeit probably overly simplistic, could be that even though Bachelet's initial response was flawed, and the Piñera government's reconstruction efforts have been quite successful, the political implications of this disaster do not seem to have turned this traditionally left-leaning area of Chile against Bachelet nor appreciably more in favor of the center right Piñera.

As we delved deeper into the politics of disaster relief in Dichato with Martín, though, our attention was shifted to another theme to which this blog and this writer are intimately attached; food!!  Martín's father-in-law, Fructuoso Biel Cascante, was staying that night along with us at the Zilic Dichato home, but had remained relatively quiet during dinner as we talked about the 2010 disaster, although he had mentioned that he was also a surgeon, once associated with the Concepción University.  But to my surprise and great pleasure, Martín explained that several years ago Fructuoso and his wife Pina authored a fantastic cookbook entitled El Fogón de Don Fructuoso, a signed copy of which I received from Fructuoso after a long and detailed discussion of classic Chilean dishes like cazuela, caldillo de congrio, gambas al pil pil, and Spanish dishes like cocido a la Madrileña, paella Doña Guadalupe, Croquetas abuelita Lupe, tortilla de verduras, and of course, his secrets for making a perfect sangría.  There is nothing that compares with discussing the tricks of the gastronomic adventure with a 93 year old "foodie".  

Ned, Don Fructuoso (and his book), and Dave

Besides his beautiful book, I came away with new approaches to preparing fried congrio (just a thin layer of flour should cover the two inch congrio steak cut across the girth of the fish, including the center bone, rather than filets), what cheese to use on machas a la parmesana (just grated aged parmesan, not soft queso blanco or mantecoso so often found) , and how to flip a Spanish tortilla to make sure both sides are nicely browned (use a plate, slip the browned side of tortilla onto the plate, then place the frying pan over the tortilla upside down, and flip over rapidly before returning the pan to the fire on the stove).  These may seem like simple, maybe even well-known tricks, but I am much surer about these now that I have heard this directly from my new favorite chef and author, Don Fructuoso Biel.


Early the next morning Ned, Martín and I met with Pilar del Campo, a young but experienced social worker with the Municipality of Tomé, that covers Dichato.  She is experienced with health education and programs that attempt to reduce violence to women and children.  Pilar helps coordinate the Harvard activities in Dichato, including a plan to integrate Concepción University sociology department students in projects with children in Dichato.  Pilar is supported in her work by a psychologist, Dr. Mario Valdivia, also from the University.  One of the main objectives of the Harvard project is to rebuild the civil infrastructure of Dichato that is so important to the socio-economic well being of the village that depends on tourism (vacationers, more exactly) served mostly by small businesses. 

Don Eduardo's, the first restaurant to open after the tsunami

Owners of shops, stores, restaurants, and service organizations who lost their locales, materials, and tools in the tsunami are being helped with a program to link them to sources of loans, grants and technical assistance to reestablish their businesses.

Pilar is a tireless professional dedicated to making Dichato a better place to live, an optimist with an infectious faith in one special group of Dichato residents:  women.  Pilar passionately explained to us how immediately after the disaster, it was three women who took over the leadership of the three informal neighborhoods (aldeas) into which Dichato is loosely organized, and guided the people through the worst of the after effects of the disaster, organizing, pushing, encouraging, demanding assistance, and anything it took to get the village functioning again.  According to her, the men in the responsible positions in the Tomé Mayor's office and his delegate in Dichato did virtually nothing.  The three women formed neighbor groups (juntos de vecinos), and are behind ambitious programs supporting tourism, water sports, and gastronomy development.

This past summer the town was jammed with visitors the entire vacation period.  Dozens of restaurants and other services were fully functioning all summer, many assisted by Chilean government and private programs like the Harvard project rebuilding the civic infrastructure of Dichato.  A major music festival was held on the new coastal walkway, and many politicians and well known artists participated.  Pilar and the women neighborhood leaders are involved in a movement to form Dichato's own political Town (Comuna) structure, freeing it from dependency on a Comuna leadership based in a larger neighboring town, often indifferent to Dichato's needs.

Martin, Pilar, Dave, and Maria Soledad Biel in Dichato

Does all of this mean that we should be optimistic about Dichato's recovery from such total disaster?  Pilar says yes. With the confidence and conviction that is so natural to social workers, she firmly believes that "in ten years Dichato will be reinvented, more attractive than ever and with better services for visitors and townspeople alike."  I want to agree with her, but I still plan to return next year when I visit Chile, to check with her and Martín.  And if Don Fructuoso is still there when I visit, I'll go with him to have a plate of perfectly prepared congrio frito at Don Mino's restaurant.
 

She's Back!!

Three years ago the outgoing President of Chile, Michele Bachelet, left the presidency, left Chile, and left behind a disaster not of her doing but one that challenged her country's capacity, and her own, to prepare for, respond to, and recover from natural disasters to which Chile is unfortunately prone. 

Recognized globally as a respectable and effective political leader, she was chosen almost immediately to lead the newly created UN Women program which she ably guided through its formative years of defending and promoting the rights and roles of women throughout the world. Living in New York, Bachelet kept Chile at arms length, staying out of political life in Chile and avoiding the contentious analysis and discussion of her response to the tragic earthquake and tsunami of 2010 and the subsequent Piñera government's rebuilding program in the affected areas.  She did testify in private the couple of times she was summoned before the legal commissions investigating her government's response on that fateful day and the immediate period before her presidential term ended in early March 2010.  Hence, she and her country avoided (postponed, really) the open and surely contentious discussion needed to clear the air regarding her role in that and other controversial moments during her administration.

But during the last week in March 2013, her absence from Chile and her relative silence on Chilean political affairs ended, as she returned to Santiago to a carefully selected welcoming group of her largest support group, women, and began her quest for a second term as President of Chile.  Her return was not a huge surprise, since she had announced that she would make a pronouncement about her intentions in late March and her ground team in Chile has been active for quite some time preparing for a campaign.  She arrived in Santiago just in time to enter the newly established primary election process which is designed to open up the selection of presidential candidates to "the people" instead of backroom selection by party leaders as has been the general approach in the past.

Bachelet will be supported in the June 2013 primary elections by her party, the Socialists (PS), and the Popular Democratic Party (PPD), both key members of the coalition that governed Chile from the end of the Pinochet dictatorship until the election of Sebastian Piñera in 2010 at the end of Bachelet's four-year term.  Another party from that coalition, the Christian Democrats (PDC), is supporting Claudio Orrego, a young mayor of one of the most populous comunas in greater Santiago; Bachelet's effective Minister of Hacienda, Andrés Velasco, will enter the primaries and possibly the subsequent general election as an independent candidate.

For the primaries on the right, the UDI party is entering  a relative newcomer to politics, Laurence Golborne, Piñera's Minister of Mining whose popularity soared when he oversaw the  successful rescue of 33 miners trapped for weeks in northern Chile, and the RN party is entering seasoned politician Andrés Alamand.

Bachelet, knowing that her return to Chilean politics would open the floodgates of pent up criticism of her term as President (unworkable public transportation system in Santiago "TransSantiago", botched earthquake/tsunami disaster response, general distrust of the senior team she had at her side, unkept promises to reform education and health systems) she orchestrated her first public appearances to present herself and her ideas for the future as a movement above and beyond the traditional party support she had in the past; a "New Majority", in her words.  This was in part dictated by the fact that, just like in US politics, political parties are at the low end of the popularity scale in Chile (and like in the US, with good reason). 

In the first few days of campaigning, Bachelet has limited her message to general proposals to reform the educational system by bringing an end to "for profit" educational institutions and provision of "free" education for all, an end to the "bi-nominal" electoral process (deemed highly undemocratic by its detractors and politically stabilizing by its proponents), and a general call for a "new constitution".  Her suggestion that a constituent assembly might be needed to bring a "new face" to Chile has her more left-leaning supporters panting and her more conservative detractors nervously visualizing a Chilean "Chavez".  Most of her announcements, however, have been quite general with few details, leaving lots of room for her to clarify and adjust later, and also plenty of room for speculation and criticism.

But Chile is not the country it was the last time Bachelet began a campaign almost ten years ago. It is a country that is moving relatively fast through a certain modernization process, in fact faster than prior projections indicated.  Chile has joined the OECD community of nations, and continues to strive for "developed country" status.  As Chile transitions towards developed country status, though, it continues to be a society of contradictions.  For example, a recent analysis made by The Economist compared important economic indicators of the Bachelet versus Piñera administrations, all of which were better in the Piñera period: GDP growth double that of Bachelet, unemployment less under Piñera,  and inflation 4% under Bachelet and 3.2% under Piñera.  It is true that Bachelet had to manage the economy during a period of significant global economic downturn, but Piñera had to bring the country back from the devastating earthquake and tsunami of 2010.  Regardless, foreign investment has returned under Piñera to almost double the lowest level in the Bachelet period.  Notable, then, is that Bachelet's personal approval is very high, in the 60% range, whereas Piñera is struggling to get back to an earlier approval level over 50%.

Chile carried out its ten-year census in 2012, the numbers from which are just now being publicised.  They reveal a country about to enter into the period known as the "demographic bonanza" period, where a higher percentage of the population is in the "productive" age group than the total of the "dependent" group made up of young children and the aged.  Total population is 16.6 million, up 1.5 million in the last ten years showing a .97% growth rate, less than what is needed for replacement.  There are 100 women for every 94.7 men, and 8.7 million are Catholics. 

Santiago, the capital city, has a slowing growth rate, but is at 6.0 million.  The second largest city, Valparaiso, is growing rapidly, but Concepción, the third largest is not.  Secondary cities like La Serena/Coquimbo, Puerto Montt and Temuco are growing, but Osorno and Valdivia are not.  63% of the population of Chile lives in 15 cities.

Life expectancy of Chileans is 78.5; the average of all developed OECD countries is slightly higher at 80.  The number of persons per home has dropped to 3.38.  In the last ten years, the number of housing units has increase 30%, so while the population grew by 1.5 million, the number of homes increased by over 1.3 million.  Public water and sewage connections have increased from 91% on 2002 to 93% in 2012, and for the same period homes with electricity have risen from 97% to 99%.

Chile is nurturing a growing entrepreneurial class; 24% of the economically active population (between the ages of 18 - 64) have a business that is less than 3.5 years old, double the US average of 12% and three times the OECD average of 8%.  41% of Chileans own a car, but only 9% have domestic help. 

In the last ten years, homes with internet connection rose from 10% to 45%, surpassing the number of homes with a land line telephone (virtually all Chileans have cellular phones).  The number of schools with internet rose from 4,000 to 10,000. However, only 57% of the population know how to use the internet, and only about 10% of Chileans profess to speak English, low for a country determined to grow through the provision of global services, international trade, and tourism.

Everyone in Chile seems to be concerned about the issue of equitable distribution of wealth, since the distribution is notably bad (on a par with the US) for a country with the economic record and aspirations it has, and it has not changed over the last 40 years.  A recent analysis of the average difference between salaries of the top 10% and the bottom 10% of wage earners reported 12.8 times in the Bachelet period, dropping to 9.4 during Piñera's term.  If this is true, it is a promising sign, but my guess is this report will be either challenged as unreal or ignored.

So this next election in Chile will have to face the issue of equitable participation in the benefits of development and equality of opportunity, especially the relationship between economic prosperity and high quality, accessible education. Ultimately, the candidate on the political right will argue for a role in the education sector for private investment, choice of institution for one's children, and yes, even a place for the profit motive in some educational and training institutes.

The left (read Bachelet) will most likely go all in for the State to take back the responsibility for basic education Pinochet gave up to municipal and private control, a situation all subsequent presidents, including Bachelet, left in place.  She will be tempted to promise free education eventually for all if not most Chileans, something the "street" is calling for, especially every time the street is filled with striking students, which will surely be more frequent for the remainder of this election year.

So, while the economic numbers show Chile on a healthy path towards a higher level of development, and while the NY Times publishes articles reporting that many business people who go to Chile to work short term end up staying or buying a second home there because "the streets are clean, public transportation is efficient, and the capital city is close to beaches and ski slopes, and while Peruvian, Argentine, and Spanish workers increasingly move to Chile because of the employment opportunities provided, the miners, the port workers, and of course the students are going increasingly on strike.  An old "Chile observer" friend of mine (I'll call him Bill for purposes of this posting) has always claimed that Chileans love to take to the street to protest, to celebrate, to whatever.  I think this year 2013 is going to prove Bill correct.

Whoever wins the general election in November, he or she will certainly face decreasing proceeds from the copper sector (Chile's costs in water and energy are getting higher than the US, and productivity is decreasing as the quality of mined copper goes down), an education sector badly in need of reform that satisfies the students enough to keep them in classes most of the time but that also produces the leaders and professionals a more developed country requires, and a general dissatisfaction with the distribution of wealth in Chile.

It makes me wonder what motivates Michele Bachelet to give up the UN job where she is most surely appreciated by all and given the red carpet treatment wherever she travels like so many UN officials receive (and usually deserve, by the way). Instead, she comes back to Chile where she will have a tough time convincing enough people that she is worthy of their trust, in an election environment where trust of government officials is at an all time low (and probably deservedly so, by the way).

Maybe it's the empanadas, the pastel de choclo, cazuela de ave, machas a la parmesana, the cueca, Pablo Neruda's and Gabriela Mistral's poetry, the Araucaria pines on the mountains above Lago Caburgua.  Or maybe it's the desire to set some things right that she left undone, like fixing the TransSantiago transportation system she launched before it was ready, strengthening disaster relief organizations that failed her the last time, fixing the education system she promised to fix but postponed, eliminating once and for all the pockets of extreme poverty in the country. 

Maybe, now that she has taken a broader look at international issues and the way conflict can be negotiated and resolved, she is anxious to get back in the driver's seat and reconcile the still bubbling issues Chile has unresolved with its neighbors; maybe she even comes back with a plan to resolve once and for all Bolivia's desire to have clearer access to the Pacific Ocean, a sure slam dunk for regional cohesion!

Maybe. 

But her opposition has had a chance to govern a bit, the country has continued to prosper, and it won't be long before the candidates on the right can run for election and govern without the stigma of the dictatorship.  This election will reveal how close the country is to that moment.

It looks like I need to plan a return trip to Chile for September, October, November this year.  Join me.

Posted in Panama City, Panama, on April 15, 2013.