Chile Forum

UPDATE:

We got a call early this morning from a contact at a government office we have been working with here in the 9th region. He has a bus and 30 volunteers heading to Angol to build houses. He was short gas. So we cut a deal that we would buy the gas so his volunteers can get to Angol, if they drop our nets at the airport in Teua. From there, they are going to be picked up by the owner of the Isla Mocha Hostil that has a plane and flown to the island.

Nets and other equipment was paid for this afternoon, should be in Temuco by morning.

I am not even sure how to explain this. It was some real horse trading on my wife's part with I think most everyone in the region.

For the last 50,000 pesos we have in the budget we agreed to put gas in a bus to get 30 volunteers to go build houses in Angol. In exchange, the guy at the regional government in charge of that project hooked us up with a church that had a truck going to Teua that will deliver the nets. The city of Loredo is helping (not sure how, I think they are donating fuel for the plane or something). The owners of the Isla Mocha hostil is then going to fly his plane to Teua to pick up the nets and fishing equipment. The guy from the regional government was so inspired by the shear practical and inexpensive nature of this little project that he is contacting Senapesca (the government agency in charge of fishing) to find out how many other fishermen in the 9th region do not have nets and equipment, to get them what they need. So, that was a lot of action for about $100 and an afternoon worth of phone calls.

I just got informed by my wife there was one more little logistical issue. I guess we are going in person to make sure the nets get to the island and no where else. So, guess it is off to the island tomorrow afternoon.

Well, we made some progress today, but not what we anticipated. Between the weather and the trucker's schedule the nets did not get delivered. They did make it to Temuco, and we got them loaded on the truck. Since the truck turned out to be larger than anticipated, they wanted to load it up with other things like building supplies. Which turned out to be o.k., because the weather on the coast had the plane kind of flying when it could today.


Click to enlarge:

admin, i am highly impressed with the effort your bride, yourself , staff and all members have been in this time of need. minor little tidbit, a food chain here in texas has annotated all of the produce signs with the note..." grown in chile". peaches, grapes (red and green), plums (red and blue) and many others.

pirate wrote:admin, i am highly impressed with the effort your bride, yourself , staff and all members have been in this time of need. minor little tidbit, a food chain here in texas has annotated all of the produce signs with the note..." grown in chile". peaches, grapes (red and green), plums (red and blue) and many others.

That is really funny considering just a few years ago the farming lobby in the States was doing everything they could to stop Chile from flooding the market with cheap produce using everything from congress to the the WTO.

I think the earthquake in the long run has at least put Chile on the map (even if it almost knocked it off the map in the process). It sure got everyone's attention.

Really interesting housing:



http://www.homergent.com/products/flexayurt/

Ships flat, fits in back of pick-up truck, sets up in 60 min w/ a 1 screwdriver
Can last 20 years -

Website doesn't list prices - but this is the best solution for post-earthquake that I've seen (for Chile at least)

???

I have seen basic prefab homes being advertised for as little as 1.5 million pesos ($3,000 US) in the local papers installed on site. No idea what they really are, but any shelter at that price other than a tent is a bargain. Those tents look like they cost some money.

There was a little old lady on the TV the other day saying that the 4 season tents donated by the Russians was the warmest house she had ever lived in. She is not alone I am sure. There are a lot of people after this disaster upgrading their living standards even just in terms of temporary housing.

I can not even count the number of houses I have been to in those regions that had gapping 4x4 foot holes in their walls or even worse problems. In fact, that was one of things that ticked me off long before the earthquake (they will chop a half meter of wood a day to feed the fire year after year, but not spend 10 mins to patch the whole in their wall). This is a serious political problem / grumbling getting louder everyday now down here from the people living around the edges of the worst hit areas is that people are not willing to do anything to help themselves because they think if they accept aid or do anything for themselves they will miss out on a fat government payout, a new house, or both. They are intentionally living on the street or otherwise not trying to fix their homes or lives for fear that the lottery might miss them. I am not talking a blame the victim thing here, but people willing to do nothing with the direct intent to game the tragedy in hopes of getting more out of it. This is political mess about to blow up in short order. By next month it might be a serious political issue that could end up costing people that really seriously do need assistants (including those that are not willing to do anything for themselves).

The problem is, they might be right. At least they sure would have been under the last government. It happened in the Futa / Chaiten disaster. We had to literally tell the fishermen out at Isla mocha yesterday to not say anything about the nets we are giving them to the government, or they very well might never get the full aid they need later. We are essentially smuggling aid to them under the table and off the books. Which luckily for us and them is a luxury we have as we are not all wound up in the political NGO mess. We are a private group of individuals giving aid to whomever we like along the way. Thus, why we are getting on a truck in the morning to make sure it does not get diverted to anywhere but our target group. It is all private property, the military and the government can not divert it to anywhere but our target.

Dagny wrote:Really interesting housing:

homergent-thumb-550x413-28671.jpg

http://www.homergent.com/products/flexayurt/

Ships flat, fits in back of pick-up truck, sets up in 60 min w/ a 1 screwdriver
Can last 20 years -

Website doesn't list prices - but this is the best solution for post-earthquake that I've seen (for Chile at least)

???

Looks like a great graffiti canvas Dagny!

5:30 a.m., going to meet the truck. How did I get signed up for this?

admin wrote:I have seen basic prefab homes being advertised for as little as 1.5 million pesos ($3,000 US) in the local papers installed on site. No idea what they really are, but any shelter at that price other than a tent is a bargain.

We have bought and put together some mediaguas locally for around 500.000 each. Originally I think we got them through Techo para Chile and Hogar de Cristo for around 400k, but last year one of the former stopped distributing them for some reason and we ended up paying 600k to a local commercial supplier for something slightly better. The final assembly was done by volunteers in a day. They are very basic buildings, catering for families who were previously living under metal sheets propped up on a bit of adobe, but they do the job. The size is not dissimilar to the tents above, by the look of it, maybe slightly bigger. I'd say those prices also tally with the cost of materials for my wooden shed, which we made from scratch in a similar style but smaller.

James.