Three Times Defeated

How I learned the meaning of the word Terremotto

When I first met our Chilean friend Gabriel at a student event, he had told me that if you look carefully at buildings around town, you can see cracks in some of the buildings. We hadn't even noticed to be honest. Santiago is almost perfectly intact unlike the devastating images broadcast to the world a few months ago from Chile's massive earthquake. It was very interesting to hear what people did that night when their world shook for an eternal three minutes. Jose told s he rushed to open the door for shelter before the frame could warp, and then spent hours with neighbors on the street during aftershocks (I can't imagine the state of his Coca Cola collection).

Santiago's Palacio de la Moneda, meaning the mint, as it was originally designed. Today this is the presidential palace and one of the best examples of colonial public buildings on the subcontinent. Its open to the public and President Piñera may even remove the tinted windows from his car as part of his efforts to provide a sense of openness and transparency in government. However he often jumps into the cockpit of his favourite toy – his helicopter.

The tremors actually continued in the weeks up until we arrived. Yet I must say the two of us were almost totally unaffected. Thank god we decided not to skip out on Chile completely. The only small thing has been that our building's radiator system had been knocked out. So as the winter weather got colder, Jose brought more blankets, pillows and heaters over to keep us cosy. Our only disruptions came after one week...

On Thursday we set off to visit the Presidential Palace of the newly elected businessman, Sebastián Piñera. Given the minimal security risks in Chile, presidential protection is so relaxed that tourists can enter the palace and roam around with only their ID to show the guards. Grande!

El Bunker – Underground, Pinochet created a complex network of secret meeting rooms, an emergency tv broadcast station, and a warm room connected to la moneda and accessible through three stairwells in the adjoining park. Santiagans affectionately refer to it as 'El bunker'.

We had already tried to get in to Seb's house last Sunday but the guard said it was closed. Today we were again denied this time by three palace guards who managed to explain using their combined simplified Spanish. They shook their hands to the word “Terremoto” which we soon understood was earthquake and we would not be able to go in because of repairs inside.

I was soon in for a revision of this first Spanish piece of vocabulary. We continued on a mission to find a cafe called the Piojera that serves up a famous drink, also called the “Terremoto”. This bar next to the mercado central is in a network of alleyways and huts covered by tin roofs. Every corner is completely packed on a friday evening with students, pensioners and everyone in between contributing to a boisterous atmosphere. This is an unmissable experience.

The earthquake drink is certainly an unexpected and potentially dangerous mix. It is literally just a pint of cheap wine topped with a creamy scoop of pineapple ice cream and a splash of fortified wine on top. When the three begin to mix, you end up with a milky wine with pina colada consistency. Strange, yes, but rather good and seriously potent. Locals had warned me that tow of these would indeed topple you.

The Terromoto

Like many of the office workers, Steph and I were very excited for the weekend to come. Our school had organized a group to take part in an earthquake reconstruction project in a coastal town hit by the Tsunami. Franzie had signed up. Steph's friend Graciela was on board. Even our friend Max from the Magic Bus in New Zealand had joined our school group with great excitement to help where we could. We had our bags packed with supplies, ready to build houses while sleeping on a school floor. It was going to be an adventure. The meeting time was Friday at 16:00 at the school so the director could lead us to the charity and buses.

A group of Chilean students who took us under their wing.

Our group of 15 volunteers had no idea what we were in for. We certainly did not expect a long, drawn out disappointment when we later arrived at 6pm sharp to the suburban university that was organizing the effort. We waited for a few hours outside the gymnasium with no information. Nothing was happening. We then sat for 2 more hours insde on the gym bleachers. Everyone was clueless. It was soon becoming clear was that this effort needed a strong leader to mobilize 700 volunteers who showed up, not a DJ spinning school dance music in the corner of the gym.

Of course in charity you have to have a higher level of patience. I fully admit that these organizers were merely volunteers in a huge undertaking. So we took it in stride. At long last groups of 20 were formed and everyone was asked to wait outside to board the busses that pulled in. But these busses remained empty for two more hours as everyone stood in the cold. The director of our school, a German man named Stefan, had mastered patience after living for decades in Chile wile building his amazing language school. He assured us that normally these situations sort themselves out in the end...

Then the university organizers signaled a free-for-all boarding, abandoning all hopes of order. The only problem was that the buses were headed to two separate towns and our group of foreign students needed to stay together. The last straw was when in our calm politeness to find free seats on any bus, we became the last people standing without any seats at all, in what turned into a 6-hour game of musical chairs. It was now past midnight and we were the only people standing outside the motorcade of 12 buses. We were told to either stand for the 5-hour jouney until 5am, sit on top of others, or go home.

Disastrous organization - we were the last people standing in a 6-hour game of musical chairs.

I must say that we were disappointed not to be helping out this weekend - more disappointed than I can remember for a long time. However, if this kind of direction carried on, how could they honestly expect to build houses let alone provide volunteers with food or shelter. We retreated back with our survival bags to inner Santiago on a night bus, in defeat, and with a cloud of terremoto gloom over our heads.