American Citizen Services Unit

U.S. Embassy Santiago

Message for U.S. Citizens

To: U.S. Citizens in Chile
From: Mark Leoni, Consul General
Date:  August 22, 2011
Subject:  Security Notice

The U.S. Embassy in Santiago alerts U.S. citizens traveling to and residing in Chile of the likelihood of continuing disturbances in Santiago and other urban centers in connection with the student protest movement.  A planned national strike and the anniversary of the 1973 military coup also present opportunities for unrest.   The U.S. Embassy urges American Citizens to avoid the areas of demonstrations and to exercise caution if within the vicinity of any protests.

Student Demonstrations

Since June, there have been mass demonstrations in Santiago and regional capitals calling for improvements in Chile’s educational system.  While the majority of the protests have been peaceful, in some cases masked protesters have destroyed property and clashed with authorities.  Several demonstrations have drawn over 100,000 supporters to the streets of central Santiago.  The protests have closed a number of Chile’s universities and high schools, but to date have had minimal impact on travel and business.  The protests have been well publicized and announced several days in advance.

Nationwide Strike Planned for August 24 and 25

A leading umbrella labor organization, the Unitary Central for Workers (CUT) has called for a “Paro Nacional” (national strike) to take place Aug. 24 and 25, and a number of other unions, including those representing public sector employees, have announced that they will join the strike.  According to proponents, the strike is to push for changes to advance democracy and social justice.  One union official has stated “this will be the biggest national strike of the last decade;” others have threatened to block roads (including those to the airport).  Given the experience of past strikes, large-scale marches are likely on these days.  U.S. citizens are urged to avoid public transportation and city centers/known demonstration areas.

Small Explosions

On August 14 and 16, noise bombs were detonated near the U.S. Embassy — though there are no indications that the embassy was the target.  The noise bombs were similar to those seen in Santiago in the past; a fire extinguisher filled with black powder.  These explosions caused little damage and no injuries.  Local authorities believe this is likely the work of anarchist groups demonstrating their capabilities to the Government of Chile.  Use common sense and avoid untended fire extinguishers and suspicious canisters in public places.

Allende’s Funeral and the Anniversary of Chile’s 1973 Military Coup

September 11 marks the anniversary of Chile’s 1973 military coup against the government of Salvador Allende.  Each year the anniversary is marked by demonstrations and marches, especially in urban areas near government buildings.  As these demonstrations can turn violent, American citizens should monitor the media for the latest information and avoid those areas.  Disturbances could affect transportation services in some areas.   In addition, September 4 has been chosen as the date for the public funeral of Salvador Allende, which could possibly lead to additional demonstrations and marches.

There are no indications that foreigners or Americans are being threatened or targeted, but U.S. citizens are urged to remain alert to local security developments and to be vigilant regarding their personal security by monitoring media, knowing the locations of police stations, hospitals, and the U.S. Embassy. The Department of State strongly urges U.S. citizens to avoid all demonstrations, as even peaceful ones can quickly become unruly and a foreigner could become a target of harassment or worse. If you are in immediate danger, call the police at 133.

U.S. citizens in Chile should regularly monitor the U.S. Embassy’s website http://chile.usembassy.gov and the U.S. Department of State travel website http://travel.state.gov, where current Country Specific Information (CSI), Worldwide Caution, Travel Warnings, and Travel Alerts can be found.  The U.S. Embassy encourages U.S. citizens to review “A Safe Trip Abroad,” found at http://travel.state.gov/travel/tips/safety/safety_1747.html, which includes valuable security information for those both residing and traveling abroad.  In addition to information on the Internet, travelers may obtain up-to-date information on security conditions by calling +1-888-407-4747 toll-free in the U.S. and Canada, or outside the U.S. and Canada on a regular toll line at +1-202-501-4444.  You can also stay up to date by bookmarking our Bureau of Consular Affairs website, which contains current Travel Warnings and Travel Alerts. Follow us on Twitter and the Bureau of Consular Affairs page on Facebook as well.

Citizens traveling and residing in Chile are advised to register their presence in the country through the U.S. Department of State’s automated online registration system found at https://travelregistration.state.gov.  U.S. citizens may contact the Consular Section at the U.S. Embassy via e-mail at SantiagoAmcit@state.gov or by calling +56-2-330-3000. 

Nomad Rover in the Atacama Desert

April 12, 2011 marked the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s 108-minute trip around the world and the beginning of human spaceflight. If you’re an expat like me, your thoughts probably go abroad when you contemplate space exploration,* but for a little country, Chile does more stargazing than you might expect.

Did you know…

• Arid northern Chile is home to over 20 astronomical observatories
• The Atacama is Mars on Earth: the Atacama desert’s famously dry climate also makes it an ideal spot to study the properties of soil on the moon and Mars.
• Mining is like space travel underground: After the 2010 accident at Copipó’s San José mine, Chilean government received assistance from U.S. space agency NASA on medical, nutritional and behavioral health issues affecting the the 33 miners, as well as on the design of the Fénix capsules used to rescue them.
• Chile created its own Space Agency in 2001. (However, its political dependence on the Ministry and Under-Secretariat of Economy suggests a mission more closely aligned with foreign investment than scientific research.)
• Aerospace engineer Klaus von Storch, of Osorno, was selected for a mission to visit the International Space Station in 2002, but did not go (sources cite lack of funds, a failed medical exam, and post-Columbia confusion as reasons). He left the Air Force several years ago but apparently still hopes to be the first Chilean astronaut.
• While Chile has yet to send a human to space, in 1999 they did manage to send some lucky ladybugs in order to prove their offworld pest-control efficacy.
• The Google Lunar X Prize: Angelicum Chile was one of 29 teams selected in February 2011 to compete for the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE, “an unprecedented competition to send a robot to the Moon that travels at least 500 meters and transmit video, images, and data back to the Earth.” Angelicum themselves say that through this effort they hope to “motivate and encourage our citizens and discover new talents, especially in the area of the technology and science.”
• Astrophiles planning to stick around for a while may get the chance to visit the European Southern Observatory’s Extremely Large Telescope, which is to be constructed in Chile and is scheduled for completion towards the end of the decade. (Plans for the Overwhelmingly Large Telescope were scrapped due to its estimated €1.5 billion price tag.)

* By contrast, your thoughts apparently turn to space travel when choosing a logo for your Chilean website.

The Puyehue-Cordón Caulle eruption is causing trouble for a lot of people and animals in Southern Chile and Argentina, but it’s nice to see Chile in world news for an event that isn’t just straight-up devastation. In fact, a lot of people are awestruck by the spectacular show nature is putting on.

The Boston Globe’s Big Picture today launched an extra-good set of pics of eruption, including a number of shots of people going about their daily activities with what looks like a mushroom cloud from a giant atom bomb rising up behind them.

If you enjoyed the lightning shots, our local news site latercera.com has plenty more:

And don’t miss this beautiful video of the billowing ash column.

Actually, it didn’t. But if you came across a June 5th Associated Press article entitled “3,500 Evacuate as Volcano Erupts in Southern Chile”, you might have read just that. It states “A rift more than six miles (10 kilometers) long and three miles (five kilometers) across was torn in the earth’s crust, officials said Saturday night.” The article, which appears to have been pulled from some online news outlets, at the time of this writing is still available on FoxNews.com:

The source of the author’s confusion appears to be the fact that the preexisting fissure at the Cordón Caulle eruption site was mentioned in the same local news reports that also described the size of the smoke column as being 10 km x 5km.

C’mon, AP, you guys are the ones I expect to still have a fact-checking budget!

I must record a memorable first from today: fruit at my local supermarket has broken the CLP 4.000/kg threshold. What is this exotic treasure, so delectable, so irresistible, that Chileans would be willing to pay US$4.50/lb for it? Nectarines. Imported from the U.S. of A.

Importing fruit from abroad is standard practice in the north, to protect gringos from long bleak winters filled with apples and oranges. It was this very demand that made Chile, once a non-consumer of cranberries and blueberries, the southern hemisphere’s largest exporter of these fruits (both of which, unfortunately, are called arándanos here, producing much confusion and a sorry Chilean cosmopolitan).

But it’s only been a few years, it seems, since Chile’s staple export fruits, notably grapes and avocados, have been reappearing during the off-season tagged with a different red, white and blue sticker. I steer clear of these, stoically filling my cart with apples and pears until the local nectarines finally reappear with the warm weather. (My carbon guilt is somewhat selective, however– I never have trouble buying bananas.)

I take some comfort in the fact that this country’s economy is strong enough to warrant the increasing procurement of such luxuries. And to be honest, the nectarines smelled delicious. But buying local isn’t yet a practice that has to be revived and relearned here in Chile the way it is in many of the places we come from. Let’s help make sure it doesn’t get lost.

Both the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg ran stories today about the weekend drop in the price of the Chilean Peso (CLP).

Interestingly, Bloomberg attributed the change to a “slump” in the price of copper, while the WSJ says that the drop is due to a weaker Euro.

Whatever the reason is, this may mean a short-term increase or decrease in individual expats’ net worth. And it will surely contribute to a medium-term decline in their confidence in the stability of their investments, whatever currency they’re valued in.

How are you feeling about the Chilean peso and other world currencies?

This month ExpatWomen.com published Expat Women: Confessions – 50 Answers to Your Real-Life Questions about Living Abroad, a book in question-and-answer format meant to help women cope with the challenging aspects of expat life.

When I saw the title I thought I wouldn’t find any information of interest to me– being the grizzled expat veteran that I am– but as it turns out I did. The section on repatriation gives sound advice with concrete suggestions on preparing your family for the process of returning “home.” A few of these are:

Prepare in advance. Read about and research your new home well before your move. In fact, treat returning home as if you were taking on a new assignment. Give yourself plenty of time to mentally prepare yourself and your family for the eventuality of moving “home.” Talk about it for as long as you can before the ac- tual move, which should give family members a chance to come to terms with leaving and what that means for friendships, familiarity and grieving the things they are going to miss. It is important to allow children (and yourselves) time to reflect on their time spent abroad and to say goodbye properly.

Adjust to the idea. Talk positively about your home country and perhaps watch movies about home, eat foods you would eat at home, and talk about what you are going to do when you get home. Creating an enthusiastic mood about the impending move will frame it in a positive light, making the transition appear like a new adventure in itself.

Grieve. Give everyone in the family the space they need to grieve once they have left. Saying goodbye to anything is difficult, but saying goodbye to a place where you have lived for a long time is even more difficult. Rather than sweeping emotions under the carpet, it is better to grieve now and then adapt better in the long term than to hide emotions now but find them resurfacing in a destructive way in years to come.

Be tourists. Take some time when you land back in your home country to travel around and relearn the idiosyncrasies of the “locals.” Have a fun and positive family vacation in your “new home” and allow yourselves to be tourists for a while. Doing this as a family is a safe way for each member of the family to slowly come to terms with and adapt to their new culture and environment.

You can read a fairly ample excerpt here. If you like it and have a Kindle™ (or use the Kindle app on your computer, as I do), buy the digital version– at eight bucks it’s half the price of the print version and significantly cheaper than the last two Kindle books I bought.

And if you buy before May 31, 2011 at midnight New York time, be sure and enter the contest by emailing your receipt to ExpatWomen.com. Prizes include coaching and other career tools, as well as a Kindle. (Wondering if a purchase-necessary contest is legal? They’ve got a serious-looking Terms and Conditions page, so I’m trusting that in Queensland, Australia, it is.)

As you may have noticed, not much has been going on around here recently. I won’t get into the details of how it happened because that story is no different than than any other blogger’s story of how they just sort of stopped blogging. There were several reasons that the hiatus began, but after a while there was only one reason that it wasn’t ending: I hated the site design but somehow couldn’t come up with a better one.

Let me tell you that it is terrible to be stuck on the design of something if you are not a designer.

My great revelation this morning was this: no design. It breaks my heart– or some other part of me that demands beauty– to see that in writing but it’s going to turn out to be one of the best decisions I’ve ever made with regards to this site. I just had to get it going again, but until today, I just couldn’t.

So I bought* myself a new, plain theme, downloaded it, installed it, and activated it. Doesn’t sound too hard, does it? But it was a monumental task for a sometime perfectionist. I had to give up on finding the perfect theme before restarting (which was never going to happen). I had to trash all of my customizations. No more stale Twitter feed. No forum integration. Just 100 posts and a blank design.

It looks pretty bad now: there’s a random photo on the front page, other photo links are broken and the directory entries are all mixed in with the rest of the posts. I’m second-guessing my permalink format as I write. But it’s clean; it’s got potential. I expect that the bells and whistles will find their way back eventually, but for now I’m going to take my own SEO advice: Write!

* Yes, bought. If you’re serious about a theme quality, spend some money.

The days following the 8.8-magnitude earthquake of February 27th, 2010 revealed much higher numbers of dead, wounded and homeless than first calculated, more damage than first reported, and unexpected strains on supplies of basic necessities such as food, gasoline and cash.

There are many ways to contribute to the earthquake relief effort, whether you’re in Chile or abroad.

In Chile

Chilean Red Cross This internationally recognized and trusted organization offers several ways to donate, including bank transfer

Donate blood to be sent to Concepción at Organización Humaniza on Vitacura 0115 in Providencia, Monday through Friday 8:00 AM – 7:00 PM.  More info about donating here.

Cómo ayudar a Chile from Endeavor – An extensive list of relief organizations and how to donate to them

Outside Chile

Chile Earthquake Relief: How You Can Help from The Huffington Post

Caritas When you donate, select the Emergencies option and then Earthquake in Chile 2010 from the pull-down menu

Other Useful Websites

How to Donate to Chile from The Pulse

Ayudemos Chile This site contains information about volunteering as well as donating money, supplies such as food and temporary shelter, and blood

ChileSurf Help for specific coastal towns affected by the tsunami

Study Chile is an educational agency that provides educational services in Chile to students from all over the World. We provide immersion cultural programs, language programs, volunteering programs and any other tailor made programs at the most important universities in Chile.