Please help - from South Africa

[Du Plessis]

After reading more than a year some of the info on this forum, we decided to become part of it. We are an Afrikaans family of 4 from South Africa. It is our biggest dream to immigrate to Chile. We want a better future for our children as well as a safer country to live in. Some of you might already ask why Chile. In the past we tried to immigrate to Australia and various other countries. Every time all the doors closed, but with Chile, all the doors kept open.

Last year August, my husband and I were able to visit Chile for 3 weeks. We had a wonderful time. We already applied for a RUT while we were there, for when the time comes and we want to buy property or a car, we won’t have to struggle to do that as well. We had a lot of searching to do in order to find the correct office, but once there it took 5 minutes to get our RUT numbers.

We also tried to apply for my husband for work on one of the mines. Unfortunately we were not very successful. We found out that you need contacts. Our Spanish is currently not good enough to apply on any of the mines’ websites. My husband has 16 years of experience on mines. He is a qualified fitter and turner and specializes in hydraulics. He has a diploma in Mechanical Aircraft. He also has other certificates for courses he did on various mining machines. I know in Chile he will be seen as a Hydraulic Engineer. If anybody will be able to help with work or contacts it will be greatly appreciated. If needed, we can supply a CV.

Working as a farm foreman or on a nature reserve, will also be a great option for our family.

We are also very interested in farming ourselves. We are looking at the possibility to buy a farm and start farming. How do taxes work for farms? How do we buy a farm? We would like to farm fruit and vegetables.

We love the outdoors and countryside much more than city life.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[rasmataz]

Welcome! Your best bet is to look for a foreign owned mining operations doing business here in Chile. Do you know any other South Africans that live here in Chile? That may be a start. However, if you want to farm and be involved in mining, you are going to have quite a commute since one is primarily in the north and most of the farming is in the central to southern part of Chile. Agricultural property tax is low. I would gleen through this forum to answer some of your other question. Good luck.

[Du Plessis]

Thank you very much for your reply, Rasmataz. It is very much appreciated.

We know of mining activity in Rancagua. How are prices for farms in that area? Do they have enough water for farming? We are used to drive 160km to and from work.

South Africans are different from other nationalities. Once immigrated to another country, they want to break contact with other South Africans. They embrace their new country with open arms, especially if they are very happy in their new country.

We are looking forward to your next reply.

[Tombi]

Welkom "Doepie"

Waarvandaan is julle? Ek woon al 10 jaar buite Suid Afrika en stem glad nie saam met jou dat ons kontak breek met ander SA's nie. Ek het 'n hele klomp Suid Afrikaanse pelle hier en het 'n klomp gehad in Australie ook. Daar is honderde Suid Afrikaners in Chile en daar is selfs 'n Suid Afrikaanse groep hier in Santiago wat gereeld bymekaar kom om te kuier. (Die SA klubs in Australie, Duitsland, Engeland ens. is baie aktief en sterk) Ek kan jou met die Santiago groep in aanraking bring as jy geintereseerd is.

As for farming, some of the guys on teh forum can offer you some advice as they have personal experience, but unless you are planning to do most of the work yourself, I imagine you will have some difficulty with labour if you can't speak the language. There is an entire Afrikaans farming community in Argentinean Patagonia (search on the forum for the word "boers" and you will see some information posted by one of our forum members), so you will certainly not be the first to do it!

There are a whole lot of South Africans here working for the mines (Anglo Chile, BHP etc), but the majority of the people I have met are in middle to upper management positions. I am sure you can contact the companies and submit your CV in English.

Stick around on the forum, (you will need a thick skin) and ask good, well thought out questions and you will learn a lot here.

Tombi x

[Du Plessis]

Tombi

Baie dankie vir jou antwoord. Ek het al van jou vorige goed gelees op die forum en gehoop dat jy my dalk ook sal kan antwoord.

Ons is oorspronklik van Kempton Park. Ek het daar grootgeword. My man se pa is predikant. Hul het op verskeie plekke gebly. Nadat ons 14 jaar gelede getroud is, het ons ook 'n paar keer rondgetrek. Die afgelope 7 jaar bly ons in Ohrigstad. Van waar in SA is jy?

Ja, die Suid-Afrikaners wat in ander lande is, sal met mekaar kuier, maar moenie dink hul sal sommer met jou begin vriende maak as jy nog in hierdie donker land is nie. Jy moet eers uit jou eie daar kom. Ons het kontak gehad met 'n Suid-Afrikaner daar, maar hy het kontak verbreek, sodra hy gehoor het ons kom oor vir 'n kuier. Ons het nie eers gesê ons wil by hom afpak of iets nie. Ons het self ons eie blyplek gekry. Ons wou net 'n draai by hom maak. Deur mense hier het ons wel gehoor van nog een of twee ander gesinne wat in Chile is. Ons het probeer vriende / kontak maak, maar daar was altyd verskonings.

Ek sal dit opreg waardeer indien jy ons in kontak kan bring met ander Suid-Afrikaners. Moet sê, na 10 jaar uit die land, skryf jy nog baie goed Afrikaans. Beter as mense wat nog hul lewe lank hier bly!

About the mining companies, as soon as you request the South American website of the company on the internet, everything goes Spanish. We went to visit a few headquarters in Santiago and none were able to help in English. It will be greatly appreciated if we can get contact with South Africans who work on the mines there.

Regards to wonderful Chile

[Tombi]

I'll send you a private message. Check your inbox

[rasmataz]

I do not know what prices of land are around Rancagua. However, if you contact the Administrator of this forum he may be able to help you since his business offers that service. Purchasing property in Chile is pretty straight forward. The only thing you need to verify is that the title is clear, no liens are in play and that the seller is the actual holder of the escritura. There are discussions on that in this forum. Again, good luck.

[Du Plessis]

Rasmataz, thank you for telling that purchasing property is straightforward, because it didn't sound that way from everything that I've read. I will look for info on property in Rancagua on this forum and contact the administrator.

Tombi, I replied on your private message.

I really appreciate all the help so far.

[zer0nz]

After reading more than a year some of the info on this forum, we decided to become part of it. We are an Afrikaans family of 4 from South Africa. It is our biggest dream to immigrate to Chile. We want a better future for our children as well as a safer country to live in. Some of you might already ask why Chile. In the past we tried to immigrate to Australia and various other countries. Every time all the doors closed, but with Chile, all the doors kept open.

Last year August, my husband and I were able to visit Chile for 3 weeks. We had a wonderful time. We already applied for a RUT while we were there, for when the time comes and we want to buy property or a car, we won’t have to struggle to do that as well. We had a lot of searching to do in order to find the correct office, but once there it took 5 minutes to get our RUT numbers.

We also tried to apply for my husband for work on one of the mines. Unfortunately we were not very successful. We found out that you need contacts. Our Spanish is currently not good enough to apply on any of the mines’ websites. My husband has 16 years of experience on mines. He is a qualified fitter and turner and specializes in hydraulics. He has a diploma in Mechanical Aircraft. He also has other certificates for courses he did on various mining machines. I know in Chile he will be seen as a Hydraulic Engineer. If anybody will be able to help with work or contacts it will be greatly appreciated. If needed, we can supply a CV.

Working as a farm foreman or on a nature reserve, will also be a great option for our family.

We are also very interested in farming ourselves. We are looking at the possibility to buy a farm and start farming. How do taxes work for farms? How do we buy a farm? We would like to farm fruit and vegetables.

We love the outdoors and countryside much more than city life.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

You need to make sure you arrive in time for the annual mining expo in chile, then you you walk around all the mining companies and talk in english dropping off your CV and asking about jobs!!! i have seen this being done before and it has worked!

http://www.expomin.cl/

[Du Plessis]

zer0nz thank you for the suggestion for the mining expo. We were unaware of it. Will get more info on it.

[Tombi]

Exponor is currently on in Antofagasta - http://www.exponor.cl/ingles/index.html
shame you missed this one.

Also - http://www.angloamerican-chile.cl/ this is in English
On this page - http://jobs.bhpbilliton.com/jobSearch.a ... anguage=en you can add your job criteria and desired location - all in English

Look up which other foreign mining companies are here and search their sites for leads.

I hope that helps to get you started...

[Du Plessis]

Thank you for the links for the mining companies. I saw that they are in English, but as soon as you want to post your cv for South America region on some of the websites, for example AngloAmerican, it goes over to Spanish. I'm starting to think of sending the cv to the e-mail address on the "contact us" page on the website, but don't know if they will accept it. Or maybe I'm not choosing the correct options on the websites.

I searched for other mining companies in the past as well, before we went to Chile. We even took the addresses of the headquarters with us to visit them, but we couldn't find all of them. Those we found, were unable to help in English.

We paid the British Chamber of Commerce in Chile a fee to post my husband's cv on their website for a few months. No one contacted us.

During our holiday in Chile, we went to the South African Embassy for help. What a waste!! The message we got was more or less "temporary out of order". There was another contact address for emergencies. We are still looking for that address.