Chile Forum

Hello Everyone. I occasionally get to a computer and i like to check in on my allchile friends.

for those of you who live here in chile, i have a question: 6 months after the earthquake and tsunami, how is Chile doing?

There are a number of different aspects to this question....repair of the infrastruture, economic recovery, overall government response to the crisis, psychological health of the population, etc.

i kow what i see here in dichato and it´s bad, but i assume that things are generally better elsewhere, with the exception of constitution, talcahuano and the san fernadez islands.

here in dichato, i see very slow progress. the army is still building little cabins for people who lost their homes. i think about 800 homes were lost altogether, with 51 people dead or missing (and presumed dead). dichato is a small town....not even one stop light.....with an economy based on fishing and tourism. some of the fishermen are back to work. some of them have new boats, some of them repaired the old ones. we get a few tourists on the weekends, but the truth is, there isn´t much for them to do. there are 3 or 4 restaurants and a few cabañas, the beach is clean, but there are still piles of rubble everywhere and there is NO Progress on replacing the bridge, which makes getting to pingueral difficult.

we currently have 1 supermarket, 1 hardware store, 1 butcher shop, 1 internet cafe and 1 liquor store. there are few small markets scattered around, too for the local people, but for the tourists, it is very limited.

there was a small revolt about 10 days ago. a few dozen people blocked the road out of town with some large logs and set them on fire. i had to call my boss and tell him that i couldn´t make it to work (sad, i know). the demonstration made the news for a day, and then everything went bck to the way it was.

the response from the chilean government here reminds me of what happened in new orleans. an inefficient and late response to the immediate disaster, a lot of talk, a much-photographed influx of politicians and supplies for several weeks...and then....dichato fell off the radar screen while everyone´s attention shifted to the next crisis. there doesn´t seem to be an end to the long chain of crises in the world, does there?

i suppose that somewhere there are some engineers with a plan to replace the bridge, and they are just waiting for the political in-fighting to stop so that they can do their job. in this respect, the change in government two weeks after the earthquake affected us in a negative way. everything was slower, and out going politician deliberately sabotage the new-comers. meanwhile, lots of people spend the winter in cold little huts with little to eat, and the bumpy, muddy detour around the ruined bridge gets only minimal attention, and only when the road gets so bad that even the lumber trucks can´t get through.

progress report from dichato...uhhhh....on a scale of 1 to 10...maybe a 3. what about where you live?

btw....if you feel like visiting, PM me...and be patient...i only get to a computer once or twice a week.

Hadn't you heard?

http://www.economiaynegocios.cl/noticia ... p?id=76861

Good luck,

James.

If the people lead, the politicians will follow.

Chuck J 3.0 wrote:If the people lead, the politicians will follow.

Except in the US, where the politicians will simply act to nullify the vote.

The politicians will only get a clue when the people come after them with torches and pitchforks. Or petards.