Incendios en Valparaiso, Relief, and Beyond

Starting on Saturday April 12, 2014 a fire broke out in Valparaiso which eventually would lead to almost 3,000 houses burned and 10,000 people are left without homes. They are saying that it may take up to 20 days to fully put out the fires. I could be totally wrong about all of this, but the important thing to know is that this fire was devastating to the community of Valparaiso.


I am 100% safe where I am at. On Saturday we could see the smoke but just thought it was a forest fire (which in part it was). We went with some family friends out to the dunes to eat empanadas (well I ate french fries sin gluten). It was at that moment I realized exactly the magnitude of the fire. We were about 15 miles away and could see the flames clearly. My 4 year old niece put it best, she said it looked like a Volcano. With the huge flames and sky full of ash, it could have been. As we were waiting for my french fries we were watching the news and realized exactly what was going on, and my mom began to call the people we knew who might be effected to check to see if they were safe and if we we could help them out at all.

 

I suggest you watch this video to understand exactly what it looks like up in the hills/cerros. It's a bit long so you don't have to watch the whole thing, but hopefully it puts things in perspective. It was an extremely hard video for me to watch just looking at all the destruction and thinking of the families I've been working with. 

On Sunday we woke up to realize the exact magnitude of the fire. It not only was still going strong but it was spreading to other hills. However, the town was starting to rally with donation centers, shelters and clean up crews. That first day I went up into the hills to help remove ashes from where a house used to be so they could start rebuilding. (I later heard from not one but two sets of parents about what a bad idea this was because it wasn't exactly the safest choice). On this day I figured out I probably have tendonitis which made climbing uphill for about 40 minutes not a great idea. We got almost all the way up to the top before I had to stop I was in so much pain. Unfortunately when your town undergoes a disaster, you don't have as much time to rest as I should be, but I am trying to be conscious of my health as I work.

Group of volunteers who came to do activity with the kids

Anyway, I went up with a few other gringos from my program and we worked for about 5 hours until we weren't able to do more because the inner room was too hot still. We had to be extremely careful to insure that we didn't uncover any buried flames since they could catch easily in the wind. Being up in the middle of the burned out areas was simply overwhelming. It looks as if a bomb was dropped.
 As we worked other volunteers constantly brought around food and water for those working. When we finally went down and were taking the train home a very nice women gave us baby wipes to clean our faces off with. It was such a little thing but it seemed like all my tiredness went away with that simple offer of a clean wipe. I have just been super impressed with the ways people are helping.

I let her paint my face which means blue lips

On Monday, I attempted to volunteer but everywhere I went was full. We had agreed not to go back up into the cerros so I was looking for a shelter/donation center to work at. Since school was cancelled for everyone in Valpo all the youths were out volunteering. Unfortunately this means starting Monday the number of available volunteers is going to decrease dramatically.
For the rest of the week I worked with my family at a shelter/donation center. What I typically do there is work with the kids, playing with them, providing them with art materials, etc. I have enjoyed working with the 13 families that are temporarily living there and learning about some of their stories. I have been able to learn about a very different part of Valpo, since most of these families are poor and live in the "tomas" (basically they just claimed the land but don't actually own it). I also have been able to talk with other volunteers and even members of the Chilean military that are guarding the shelter. We are an officially recognized shelter which means we get food and protection from the military. We even were visited by the Minister of Defense on Friday (we're that legit).

8 month old baby at our shelter

I have learned several things working in the shelter. First and probably most importantly, if disaster strikes and there are kids living in shelters, DO NOT BRING THEM CANDY. Yes, I know you think you are providing a special treat, but so does every other single person. Seriously they have so much candy, it's unhealthy. We have some of it hidden so they don't eat all of it now. The kids are so jacked up on sugar it's hard getting them to go to bed and to eat normal meals. So the lesson here is, bring fresh fruit or juice or coloring books. Just not candy. I also learned that a lot of the people who are staying in our shelter live in the tomas, which mean they will not be able to receive government help, so for them, it's going to be a long recovery process. There are a huge number of volunteers, but but this recovery process won't just be this week, I'm sure it will last for months if not years.



If you want to help, and unlike my me don't have the luck to be in Chile right now, my friends set up a page to help a local school.Please do not feel obligated to donate money! I just know some people were interested and I wanted to share the resources I have with them.
Or if you prefer, you could donate to Red Cross (I had a hard time finding a page in English helping with the relief sorry!)
And finally, this is the shelter I've been working at, previously a cultural center (this is all in Spanish though sorry!). It has some information up on the page if you want to check out the space.