Miguel's Chile Story
Posted by Holly Sorgen
I started my trip to the south of Chile with my nephew Alex on Saturday March the 26th. He was driving a van and I was driving a car. It was 8:00 am and the sun was just rising over the Andes Mountains.
The van was loaded with 320 litres of water, 160 Kgs of flour, 6 boxes of fresh grapes, pasta, dried beans, kettles, plates, thermal blankets, tents etc. We entered the highway and it felt like we were entering a war zone.
The further we drove south we could see the incredible effects of the earthquake. The bridges and overpasses were totally destroyed. Big parts of the highway were missing and kilometer long cracks were running down the highway. It was like someone had grabbed a chocolate bar and broken it .
When we were traveling between Curico and Talca, my telephone started to ring and it was my nephew in the other vehicle and he was struck by the images he was seeing. He said he was thankful for the opportunity to share this with me because it is very difficult to imagine the power of nature and the enormous consequences it can cause.
We arrived in Arauco at 6:00 pm and after eating something with the people there and sharing the events of what had happened we realized that many hours had gone by and it was 2:00 am when we went to bed. As is usual, we were staying at Luis and Keny Ortiz's home who are friends from our Rotary visits here before.
The next morning, we drove to nearby places that were the most severely damaged by the earthquake. It usually takes 15 minutes to get to Llico, a nearby town, but now over bad roads, it took one hour and 45 minutes to get there.
On the side of the road, there were people asking for help with sign - "please help us we lost everything." We stopped where 2 children who were brothers were standing with a sign, Juan was 9 and Jaquin was 12. Keny asked them if they wanted money and she offered them some candy she had in a bag. The older brother said "no thank you, we don't want money, we only need food." We reached back into the van and offered them some of what we had and they thanked us and started walking home.
We had decided earlier with information that the city hall had given us that all the food we had brought would be given to the people of the town of Punta Agua Pie. In this area, the earthquake didn't destroy the houses but it totally destroyed all the fishing boats which is their entire livelihood. We offered them other supplies and they said they didn't need anything but whatever food we could spare. These simple fishermen don't have access to grocery stores and supplies.
The president of the neighbourhood said "please take the other things to those who need them more." He thanked me for our generosity and said God bless you. In my mind, the sad faces of these people is engrained. These proud hard working people are waiting with such need but also a timidness to need this assistance from strangers.
Llico is a place where Luis and I came to buy seafood empanadas a year or so ago. The place that we used to buy them was close to the beach. My mother was once with us there and they had excellent food that we all enjoyed at this restaurant. When we arrived in this town, it was like a scene from a movie. The houses were completely gone and it was only piles of debris everywhere. When I started to walk through it you could see pillows, mattresses, toys, stoves, furniture everywhere. There were people searching through the debris to try to find personal belongings and piling up pieces of wood to try to make a fire because the nights are already starting to get cold and winter is fast approaching. The wind at night is cold and the rains had started.
I was taking pictures as I walked and felt my heart tightening. I was thinking of the people now sleeping on the ground with their children(like my children) and looking at the future with so much uncertainty. The restaurant was completely gone. Any parts still standing were being taken down as the walls were dangerous.
The water at the dock has retreated about 50 metres from the beach. The Santa Maria Island that you see across has become 3 metres higher above the water. No one seems to know why the ocean has changed so much. The people of this town lost everything even their way of life because the sea has changed now. The water of the sunami took everything and gave it back to them totally destroyed.
"Where do we start what are we going to do?"
The families had set up a camp together on higher ground with some tents. It was at this camp that we gave away dishes, kettles, water, inflatable mattresses, tents, thermal blankets etc. They said to us that these were the best gifts because they had been sharing one small kettle amongst all of them. We were able to give them 20 pots and multiple sets of dishes and cutlery.
The drive back to Arauco was done in absolute silence and everyone had tears in their eyes. These people are trying so hard to restart their lives with so much energy even though they lost everything and meanwhile the earth keeps shaking over and over again. They still had so much hope for the future despite what they were facing.
As I had been walking earlier I had seen the foundations of the houses people had lost and they had left signsin the ground saying things like "we will build you again Llico with a lot of energy and hard work we will build you again.we love you." and like in the picture it says "God loves you and Llico only believes in love"