A long winter in Chile

It’ll come as no surprise that the four months from March to July this year were some of the most challenging we’ve experienced in Chile. March started awesome. We had just gone to a good friend’s wedding in town that was amazing. Rena had just started school at Waiwen Forest Preschool and she was so excited to be with her friends. Then Covid shut down everything.

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Being isolated from the big cities was good and bad for us. Good in that we didn’t get many covid cases but scary in that we depended on supplies from Santiago. It wasn’t clear if they were going to allow deliveries to keep coming in as everything locked down. Luckily the stores here continued to get restocked and we settled into “stay-at-home” lucky to have a big property and two little ones to occupy the time. Surfing was banned but when a semi-secret wave by my house got good I was able to sneak sessions in mostly unnoticed. Rena turned 3 years old on April 15 and we had a little party the four of us. Her birthday present was an outdoor swing and play-set that she calls her “restaurant”. Rena and Zac got some good brother and sister time together and we were so happy to see them start to play together. Oh and I turned 40 in May 🙂

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All was ok and then June hit with records rains and flooding. The river in town overflowed and flooded nearby houses. We had our own little disaster when our new guest house flooded through leaks all over the roof and windows.

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I was overwhelmed with the leaks and with work stopped in Chile, I was unable to get help to fix the roof or get the window company to come help. As I started to do the repairs myself, it didn’t take long to find errors and corner cutting in the work. Lesson learned about trusting people to do their work. It was all very depressing for me to see the water damage in the walls and floors in a house I had put so much effort and money into. The rains kept coming and I kept trying to patch leaks the best I could and moving buckets and towels around inside.

While these strong storms were happening, our solar system got fried one night and we had to move to generator only power. I had just bought a new generator, so I was prepared I thought, but then that generator stopped working after one week, leaving us without power for several days. My local auto mechanic came to my rescue and helped me figure out that the relay switches were bad, and it was simple to replace them The solar system was more tricky to fix as I needed a new inverter. With the supply chain of solar gear from China frozen, it was very difficult to find a replacement here in Chile. But again, a local friend, who works in solar, saved me by loaning me a spare and he also took mine to get serviced. It’s actually still being “serviced” since 3 months ago. Good thing we have the loaner. The next to go was our heating system. We had upgraded from a wood fireplace to a new pellet based heating system last year. It’s amazing, but it does rely on software and this software suddenly froze and the unit wouldn’t turn on. The service center was in Spain, and Spain was totally shut down for Covid. The Chilean company that sold me the unit was MIA of course. So we got out the backup portable propane heaters and waited 3 months for people to start working again in Spain. In July they opened their offices and they sent me new the software file to update and and all was good in a matter of minutes. I guess in Spain, if the office is closed, you can’t work or reply to customer service.

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While this was going on we were super stressed about when and how to go back to the USA to visit family. Jenine’s parents already had their trip to Chile cancelled in April and we had a flight in early July that got canceled. We were supposed to be going back to see family and for our friend’s wedding that was now pushed out to next year. We actually didn’t know if we’d get to go back to the states, as LATAM airlines kept jerking us around. Jenine was spending hours and hours dealing with refunds and rebooking flights that kept getting cancelled. She was pretty stressed as it had been almost a year since she had seen her family and they had seen Zac and Rena. Luckily, on July 15 we got confirmed on a flight that left four days later on July 19. Only problem was my passport was expired and we didn’t have Zac’s USA passport even though we had applied for both in March. With covid everything had gotten messed up at the embassy. The next day I was off to the US embassy in Santiago and after a 6 hour wait I had an emergency passport and miraculously they found Zac’s official passport in the office ready. On July 19 we escaped cold wet Chile and arrived smoothly to summer in USA.

The month back in the USA with family was great, I’ll share updates from our trip to the states next time. Travel was surprising easy during Covid – empty planes and airports. We got back to Chile on August 21 and I hope to put the tough winter behind me. Lucky too that everyone we know was healthy as well.

For one beaches are fully open. Surfing is happening. Actually, kitesurfing is happening as the wind season started earlier this year. Hotels and restaurants are closed, but most everything else is open and people are slowly going back to work. Outdoor dinning is set to open this week. My official passport came in the mail finally. Some of the permits I needed to start construction of the guest house, which I applied for 1.5 years ago, got approved recently; yes I already built the house but that’s how it works here. We are even going to start Rena’s Forest School now because the stats are good and outside gatherings are allowed. It’s great that Rena’s Forest School is 100% outside. The guest house still needs a lot of repairs, but hopefully I can finish it in September myself. The guest house has been a big stress for me and I want to just have it done.

The winters here are always really challenging, and this past one with COVID and the rain made it extra hard. But we’ve learned to be prepared. I am reminded of a navy seal saying of “two is one and one is none”. Here if you don’t have a backup for power, water, heat, internet, food and anything essential you just can’t count of having those things.

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It’s been 6 years since we left San Francisco. It hasn’t been the easiest thing putting roots down in Chile and figuring out living off the grid but it has its rewards. We’ve learned a lot about being self sufficient. It amazes me to see Rena speaking Spanish with her friends and Waiwen is a very unique preschool that Jenine helps run and I’m excited for Rena and Zac to attend. We might even get real electricity from the city soon, which will be a game changer, although we will always keep solar and a generator as a back up:)

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george