Chile Forum

A BIG HOO-RAH for the Carabineros here, and in Chaiten. Awesome guys who work in sometimes incredibly difficult weather and terrain. I cannot say enough good about the guys we've met here.

I've added some pictures from the last couple of days. Yes, we are dragging our feet in leaving. I don't know what else to say!

Thanks to everyone, especially to our Emergency Response Team, Charles and Zandra, for updates, advice and help. Attorneys often get a bad rap, but sometimes you have the pleasant fortune to meet one who really defines what an attorney should really be (in your dreams), and that is the kind of person Zandra Valenzuela is. A priceless facilitator, and trusted friend. And not just in disaster situations, but in the everyday "git-er-done" sense. She and Charles both are representative of our experiences here in Chile.

And so it goes....

Vicki

Now, I don't know, I don't know where I'm a gonna go
when the volcano blow.
Let me say it now,
I don't know, I don't know where I'm a gonna go
when the volcano blow.

Ground, she movin' under me.
Tidal waves out on the sea.
Sulphur smoke up in the sky.
Pretty soon we learn to fly

[Chorus:]
Let me hear you, now
I don't know, I don't know where I'm a gonna go
when the volcano blow.
Let me hear you now.
I don't know, I don't know where I'm a gonna go
when the volcano blow.

My girl quickly say to me,
"Mon you better watch your feet."
Lava come down soft and hot.
"You better lava me now or lava me not.

[Chorus]

No time to count what I'm worth,
cause I just left the planet Earth.
Where I go I hope there's rum.
Not to worry mon soon come.

[Chorus]

But I don't want to land in New York City,
I don't want to land in Mexico.
I don't want to land on no Three Mile Island;
I don't want to see my skin a-glow.

Don't want to land in Comanche Sky Park,
or in Nashville, Tennessee.
I don't want to land in no San Juan airport or
the Yukon Territory.

Don't want to land no San Diego.
Don't want to land in no Buzzards Bay.
I don't want to land on no Ayatolla.
I got nothin' more to say.

chorus

boo hoo hoo
I jus wants my futalefu
take me back to my
down home country crew
they back in futalefu
boo hoo hoo

chorus

p out

I see it has made it to the front page of google news today under world news.

here is the morning photos from the NASA sat as it passed by.

http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/showall.php

It reaches all the way to the Alantic now, but seems to have drifted north more.

If you look close at the high res photos, you see there are many valleys South of Futa that it looks like it has missed, and now it is heading more North. Hopefully it will stay there.

Breaking news:


The government has filed a judicial action to force the evacuation of the remaining people in Chaiten, allowing them to enforce with the military the evacuation of Chaiten and the area around the volcano. We are still trying to figure out what that means. I guess there a lot of people in the mandatory evacuation zone that are not leaving, and because of the constitutional safe guards there are limits to what the president can force on people.

Zandra Valenzuela our resident legal expert says it is the first time it has ever been done in the history of Chile.

you got to understand, the community loyalty is strong in that part of Chile. We just visit, vacation, and do business down there and it is very infectious. I could see some police and others that are stationed there being infected by that sense of community loyalty fairly fast.

there is a special about the volcano on http://www.chilevision.cl at 10 pm we believe. It can be viewed online.

I think that more than anything...actually I know it...its a situation were these Patagonians want to die not only with their boots on but with patagonia under their boots when they go, it has nothing to do with possesions....now we might consider a cow or an ox as a posession but they see it as a ...companero, which is more than a friend...I'll bet there is a fair share that simply won't go because of their oxen...I think there is a saying in patagonia...let them pick you out a wife before they pick you an ox...and that really says it...

p out...


I want to comment that the carabineros have a real paternal/family role in the south and the further you go south the stronger it is....you see in the old days they would garrison carabineros in the countryside....they would have a little compound...an office, barracks and stables....they were required to make the rounds by horseback continuously and check in on everyone....maybe pulling through every 3 to 4 weeks or so....well, part of the service was to stay with people in their homes...carabineros would give out payment chits for staying in a home but the value was nil, compared to the service they recieved...so in this pastor type position they came to see the people as their children so to speak and knew everyone...everyone!!!!...all their habits and who was in love with who and who was a mean drunk etc...and so you can imagine the attachment one for the other...its a fierce bond that a volcano cannot crush and less so a Presidenta or a government ruling....the guardia civil wished they had it so good...

p

Hope everyone is ok when the volcano erupts near chaiten, got the news from this morning papers ....

el P! You are right on the money with that post. About the people, the Carabineros, and especially the oxen. They are working pets. I almost seriously damaged my relationship with my neighbor when I asked if they eat ox in Chile. She almost fell down!

The post truly describes here.

Thanks,

Vicki

From the May 8 Santiago Times:

"Areas now being covered with up to 40 centimeters of ash are practically lost," Universidad de Chile
engineer Wilfredo Vera told Radio Cooperativa. "The ground will need much more than five years in order to
recover. Decades could pass before natural vegetation begins to grow again. These areas will be starting from square
one."

eeuunikkeiexpat wrote:From the May 8 Santiago Times:

"Areas now being covered with up to 40 centimeters of ash are practically lost," Universidad de Chile
engineer Wilfredo Vera told Radio Cooperativa. "The ground will need much more than five years in order to
recover. Decades could pass before natural vegetation begins to grow again. These areas will be starting from square
one."

Why do they always adopt the doom and gloom line? Within 3 years, 90% of the plant species were growing once again on Mt St Helens. Ritzville, Wa is a wheat farming community in Eastern Washington. The ash drifts received several feet in the aftermath of Mt St Helens. Recovery time was measured in months, not years and certainly not decades.

And yes, after Mt. St Helens, they said the same things.....that areas would never recover or would take decades to recover.