We've created a blog to give donors project updates, family stories, and information about donations received and how funds have been spent. On the blog you will find a link to a spreadsheet where you can confirm that your donation has been received. Donations from the US haven't made it into Chile yet due to some difficulties I'm having with Paypal. I should have it worked out by the end of this week.
With donations received so far, we've already purchased enough materials to build 65 shelters! Your donations will help us purchase the materials needed for the remaining 35+ needed. Yayy!! I've been so amazed by how the families and friends of all the foreigners I know in Chile have come together to fund some truly amazing and urgently needed projects. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I just can't thank you all enough.
Last week Matt and I went to Poblacion to do some family interviews to put on the blog. I kind of assumed Matt would do all the talking, since his Spanish is much better than mine and I think he is just better at this type of thing in general. Well, when we showed up at the first family's house, Matt said hello and then kind of walked off with the volunteer construction crew to look at piles of wood and stuff, leaving me with the Senora.
Senora Onafra is a lovely woman. She was all smiles as she showed me around a covered patio behind what was left of their house. There they had made a little bedroom with blankets hanging on clothes lines as walls. The bed was there, neatly made, with a beautiful antique wardrobe sitting beside it. She invited me to sit down and started to tell me how it really wasn't that bad to sleep in the garden. She thought she would be cold, but she wasn't at all! This lady is a serious trooper.
Then, she started telling me about what the earthquake was like for her and for her children living in various other cities. I realized at this point that I was doing the interview, not Matt. Surprisingly, it went okay.
See, here's the proof. It's a crappy picture, but proof none the less.
We moved on to the next house. Actually, it was no longer a house. It was an empty lot. This family's home collapsed completely during the earthquake. By the time we had arrived to interview them, all the rubble had been hauled away. All that was left was a pile of wood they had manged to salvage to use as cooking fuel.
Of course, Matt disappeared again to chat with the builders about material costs and to take pictures of piles of wood. I was left once again to do the interviewing.
There were 10 people living in the Gomez Lorca home, all of whom were miraculously able to escape from their collapsing house without injury. Included in this family are a seven year old girl and a newborn baby, only about two weeks old at the time of the earthquake. They showed me where they are all sleeping now, a tiny shack, neatly outfitted with three beds, rugs, and pictures on the walls. I shyly asked if I could take a picture to show to our donors abroad, feeling my insides drop to my knees. Amazingly, this family was all smiles as well, even as they were telling me how difficult the soon approaching winter would be for them.
As we drove back to Santa Cruz, I felt awful. I felt worse than awful. I couldn't believe that I had a house to return to, to spend the night in, and that many of my neighbors don't. I have indoor plumbing, electricity, and many of my neighbors don't. During the mere three minutes that the earthquake shook much of Chile, so many people were thrust back into extreme poverty which took years for their elders to rise out of. All of that work, gone in three minutes. And whose fault is it? Who is there to blame? No one? That just can't be right. It doesn't feel right that the earth can just shake and knock down your home, leaving you with nothing.
Just as I wrote that, the earth started to make that unsettling light roar that accompanied the earthquake and many of the aftershocks. The house shook a little and I just couldn't help but wonder why the earth was so mad at us. Totally irrational, I know, but homes falling down out of nowhere in the middle of the night seems pretty irrational too. The earth growling at you while you sit in your bed at night? That's just not supposed to happen.
I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around this, can you tell?
I promise that my next post will have nothing to do with earthquakes. (Ok, unless something crazy happens again...) I've been meaning to write about my garden, the amazing ferias, or farmers' markets, in town, and my (drum role please) planned return to my homeland, the good ol' US of A! There's lots of fun not seismically related stuff in my life, honest!
Besos,
Allie
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