Chile Forum

We have a truck of aid going out today, up the 8th region coast as far as Concepción. It has beds and about 1,000 pounds of flower. We now have the red cross support and hogar de cristo, along with a rapidly growing list of other NGO's working with us (it is growing so fast, no one even bothers telling me anymore).

Doctors and the plane are on their way back to Temuco this afternoon. We will regroup this evening, and see where everything stands. Meanwhile, aid is still moving. For 170,000 pesos in gas, we have several tons of aid being delivered up the coast between Tiau in the south, to Lota, and as far as Concepción. The Cruz Roja ( Red Cross of Chile) and Hogar de Cristo is providing official cover to keep the aid moving and out of the hands of whatever bureaucrats might decide it is a good idea to send it somewhere else.

Here's a link to Global Voice's Chile Earthquake News. Lots of good links and articles in Spanish and English. It has information and reports from Mapuche communities who say that they haven't received any aid yet. http://globalvoicesonline.org/specialco ... uake-2010/

Helping the Mapuche would be a worthwhile project. And probably no one else will.

Continual Gratitude to you all....

We are working on the Mapuche project. We have our resident anthropologist camped out in our living room evaluating the situation.

Really happy to hear this!

G'day again. Charles I thought you were resting in bed nursing your fever Doesn't Sun Tzu have something to say about taking care of yourself as well?

The new banners look great on your web-sites, they are very eloquent.

Have received a bit more cash from a friend - who was a bit more generous than me I must say - and will be sending it through Steph again after I PM her and hopefully will be in your account on Monday.

Meanwhile, THE refund has finally been received. And that should be the end of contacts with Pp.

PS: an old remedy for fevers: 1/2 glass of pure lemon juice, 2 tablespoons of pure honey.
Heat as hot as you can take it, and drink it all in one go before you go to sleep. Warning: keep several pijamas or changes for the night at hand. You will perspire you soul out.

Some photos of todays activities:

Click to englarge

Yea, I was feeling better this morning. I still really need a vacation, but hanging in there.

Glad to hear everyone is getting their money back from Pay Pal.

We are waiting for photos from the island to come back in a little bit. The whole crew is on their way to my house for a meetings.

O.k. the report.

We are wrapping up the aid flights for a bunch of reasons. Mostly the entire team has been going full throttle for over a week, and is burned out. We did accomplish in spectacular manner what we set out to do.

Vince flew 37 hours of flights in 6 days. Vince put it as being like flying in the United States from LA to New York, and then 1/4 of the way back to LA again. It is thousands of miles. That is not including time on the ground, prep, loading planes, filing flight plans, refueling, and so on. Just start to stop on the engine of the plane.

The urgent need of a plane in most cases is past. Roads are open, aid is getting through, and other methods are more cost effective. Right now we see the aid problems that exist are bureaucratic in nature, and also getting fuel for trucks. We are still working these problems.

Also, we had word the military is grounding all private aid flights as of today in Chile. We are checking on why this is, but not going to tangle with military until this gets sorted out.


screen shot of the plane gps just in the 9th region (sorry missing the 8th region) to give you an idea:
click to enlarge



Isla Mocha flights, including search for the missing girls

This is was just a really great photo I had to post:

CLick to enlarge
take off from isla mocha

I honestly tried to get everyone to stop today. Didn't work.

Vince is flying a load of supplies and fuel to Isla Mocha this afternoon for the family that is looking for the girls that were killed in the Tsunami. It fairly bad weather also.