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Chile Helps Chile

Pride After A Devastating Earthquake

By Jamie Welch, BA'92

I was awoken early the morning of Feb. 27 by a call from a friend concerned about how my relatives were fairing after the horrific Chilean earthquake. I turned to Fran, my wife of seven years and a native of Santiago, Chile, and saw the concern on her face as she gazed at her laptop. To my relief, all our friends and family were fine, except for some cracks in the walls, and a scare from the rumbling and blackout, which affected 93 percent of the population. Relieved, but still half-asleep, I sophomorically lectured my friend that all would be fine—Chileans, I explained, are independent, hardworking and proud to a fault.

After hanging up the phone my smugness changed to concern as reports filtered in—the statistics were jarring. The earthquake that occurred seven miles off the coast at 3:30 a.m. local time lasted 90 seconds and registered 8.8 on the movement magnitude scale. Five hundred times stronger than the Haitian earthquake one month prior, the tremors spread across the world as tsunami warnings were issued in 53 countries. President Michelle Bachelet declared a state of catastrophe, deployed the armed forces to the southern cities hit the hardest, and the death toll shot as high as 800 before dropping down to about half that figure.

Proving me right about Chilean pride, Bachelet called off international aid, although leaders of many countries responded with donations and condolences. A few unsavory acts of violence and vandalism left the country with an undeserved public relations black eye — Chile is one of the safest countries in Latin America — but the positive news outweighed the bad.

A telethon was held with a goal of raising $30 million, and within 24 hours that amount was doubled, then tripled a month later. Now the challenge was on Un Techo Para Chile — A Roof For Chile — an internationally recognized student volunteer organization that builds small wooden houses called Mediaguas. The Rev. Felipe Berrios, S.J., a Jesuit who was appalled by the poverty affecting his country, founded Un Techo Para Chile in 1997 with the goal of eliminating Latin American slums.

It had been years since I lived in a low-income neighborhood in Santiago with a family, which exemplified the Spanish phrase mi casa es su casa. I was relieved to hear everyone was fine and the house, which I had helped build an addition to, had held her ground. But I was compelled to help. When Fran decided to take her spring break from her teaching job at a Montessori school to go to Santiago to see her family, I decided to accompany her. Surely Un Techo Para Chile could use my carpentry skills, especially since school was just starting up again and many student volunteers would have to return to class.

Santiago, upon our arrival, appeared in good shape on first blush, and its high-speed subway and glass skyscrapers survived surprisingly well. After seeing the relatives and friends I went straight to the international HQ for Un Techo Para Chile. My gringo countenance surprised them a tad, but by explaining in Spanish that I had carpentry skills, I was welcomed and immediately notified that I would be joining 3,000 volunteers departing Santiago in 100 buses, then heading out into 50 affected towns in Southern Chile. I was given a list of items to bring — food that would be donated, a shovel, hammer, gloves and measuring tape. After a well-organized rally, at 1:00 a.m., two busses took my group of 40 volunteers to a town 30 miles from the epicenter, a small farming village called Ninhue. There’d be no showers for a week, as we’d be sleeping in a grammar school and working from 6 in the morning until 1 a.m. — Good Friday and Easter Sunday included. Our group of 40 was divided into groups of five, with one experienced leader directing each. In five days the five of us built two houses. There were countless moments, from the ground breaking to the ribbon cutting ceremonies, that were emotionally fulfilling and borderline existential, as these pictures hopefully help explain.

In the end I remembered how I had described Chile to my friend that morning, and it was nice knowing that in the end I was right. Chileans are a special people, and their pride results not in hubris but in results. If you wish to help or find out more about Un Techo Para Chile, contact them at www.untechoparachile.cl.

About the Author: Jamie Welch, a 1992 Creighton graduate with a degree in journalism, lived in Chile in 1997 and worked as a reporter and English teacher. He has been to all corners of Chile as a tourist and an international journalist — from the Atacama Desert in the north to the Chilean weather station in Antarctica, where he sailed across the treacherous Drake Passage to the scorpion-tail tip of South America, Cape Horn, and cruised up the Beagle Channel through Patagonia. Welch and his wife, Francisca, who met in Chile, now live in Pensacola, Fla.