Patagonia

Today's entry was brought to you by Sophie Kornick ---

Today Emma, Skye, and Riley, joined by Jeff, Daniel, Weston and Susan, were lucky enough to get to wake up at five in the morning. Though they were not quite awake, the city of Santiago was in full swing! They made their way to the airport by bus, and boarded their flight to Coyhaique. While they were in transit, Nicole, Mollie, Cleo, Sophie, Alex, and Katie woke up at around 8 to get to the airport for a flight leaving in the late morning. This group got to the airport by Trains x2 and a bus. We checked our bags and got our tickets with translation help from Lipe-dog and Podmore. We boarded our flights and arrived at the hostel at about 6 o'clock. Both groups made trips to the town surrounding the hostel. Riley, Emma, and Skye went earlier bringing back matte, hats and braclets. Cleo, Mollie, Nicole, Sophie, and Katie went later and bought chocolate that they shared while looking at the beautiful views. Alex went on a run.  When we were all back at the hostel, we gattered for a meeting with locals from the community.  In this meeting we talked about the effect that the dam would have on the surrounding communites. We talked about the ways that the executives of Hidro Aysen (the dam builders) were influencing the locals to gain their support for the project. They talked about how, when doing the enviormental impact assesment, the government officials did not listen to the worries of the people, therefore making the Hidro Aysen people not responsible for much of the problems they felt building a dam would create.  I (Sophie) found the fact that these people had seemingly not done their jobs correctly really frustrating. The meeting covered the social problems that bringing 5-6000 construction men would create for the town. This is somthing Nicole thought was an important point. She said it was an idea she had not thought of before, and helped to round out her concerns about the dam project. Cleo said "I realized that the 'not in my backyard syndrome' did not apply because the energy would not be going to the Aysen region. If they need energy in the futurr it has to be developed in a way that respects the land."

 ps Hi MOM!! Hi DAD!