5 Days in the Campo- by Griff

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On our first trip to Thermas de Ancamil, Mandy had this overwhelming feeling that Flor was in need of some serious emotional support. After our first night there, while I was putting away the tent, Mandy decided to just wander and see if she could find anything that we could do for her. After an hour or so Mandy came back as excited as can be, "She needs a new back door, all she has is nailed up boards that doesn't open, and it lets in tons of cold air." I began to get excited at this news as well. Finally it was something right up my alley, and working for a few days at this incredible place would be a best case scenario. I told Mandy I´d go take a look. My head began spinning as we walked. there must be tons of tools on a farm like this. All over there were sheds, barns, fences, and small cabins. Lumber was in abundance from trees cut down on the farm that someone had milled with portable machinery. All of this added up to a slam dunk in my mind.
First I took a look at the door. It was as described, just nailed up boards. However, the opening for this makeshift door was about 3´6" wide and about 4´10" tall. My slam dunk farm job just bricked off the rim. Who knows what was in the sheet metal wall above the makeshift door. I tried not to look too discouraged, and suggested we take a glance at the tools. Flor took us over to an old rickety shed and opened the door, I was in astonishment as a looked over the old hammer, hand crank drill, dull chisel, rusty hand saw, and dull garden knife. At this point I knew that the best tool I had for this job would be the Leatherman that my brother Russ had given me before we left. At this point Mandy could see the worry in my eyes, but apparently still was confident that we could do the job. Flor kept telling us not to worry about it. That we could do it next time we came to visit her, but we knew there would be no better time than now. So we set off to buy supplies, and figure out what to do.
My next great idea was to go a complete exterior door and frame package, like they carry at the home depot. This way I would need much fewer tools. Just rip the old one out, shim it in a few inches and put the new one in. Apparently, in Chile, no door comes made complete, even at the biggest Home Depot-ish store 1 1/2 hours from the country. Now, the past weeks struggling through commercial doors that would drag, guest house doors that wouldn´t shut or lock properly, finally made sense. So, I resolved to buy a few cheap hand tools and do the best that I could with them.
The tearing out of the old door and the installation of the new door went as good as could be expected. I was able to raise the opening without breaking any plumbing or compromising the structure. Also, the new door ended up working well with tight clearances even though I had no level of any sort. I did, however, manage to break the cheap skillsaw that was borrowed from the neighbors, and put my signature on this piece with plenty of hammer marks and other ugliness. It was during this process that I realized that all this effort wasn't merely about putting a door in. I was going to have to get over the fact that this job was never going to look great to me. It was much more important that we were showing kindness and love to someone who was struggling in life.
While I was working on the house, Mandy was doing an equally if not more important job, keeping the family entertained. Not literally, but she was buzzing around talking to Flor, trying to get the 98 year old grandma to lighten up a little, and most importantly teaching English to 15 year old Dorkas. Mandy went above and beyond with her tutoring when she discovered that Dorkas had apparently taken 5 years of English in school and could not say basic words or phrases. This didn't strike me as odd because of how quickly I pick up Spanish - ha ha. However, Mandy knew she could help her make great strides, and more importantly give her some confidence and desire to learn a language that would be very important for her professional aspirations. She set off doing this by tutoring her a few hours during the day, along with making a curriculum for her to learn from (workbook and tape ). Mandy spent hours in our little cabaña reciting scenarios relevant to 15 year old girls into the tape recorder. I tried to not make her laugh, but it was impossible with all of her acting out teenage crushes, boys, makeup, and fashion. Hopefully it was just the thing to get Dorkas to really start learning English.
After a day or two the grandma thought it was time to start warming up to Amanda, or at least thought she was worthy of a diversion for her old tired mind. Mandy first inquired about knitting, and was astonished how excited a 98 year old could get over that, or any subject. Next, the grandma harassed her a little for not having children yet, that we had chosen to wait was completely inconceivable to her. Finally, she really opened up by telling Mandy about her many health problems, ¨me faltan muchas cosas en mi cuerpo¨ ( I'm missing many parts inside my body), which Mandy and I still laugh about many weeks later.
During our days on the farm, we also learned many things about this interesting Mapuche family we were staying with. Their seeming isolation and lack of knowledge about popular culture and history was both refreshing and astonishing to us a the same time. Flor had no idea what McDonald's was, and Dorkas had never heard of the Holocaust. On top of many other things, we figured out that Flor thought that homemade food didn't contain calories. She would serve us lunches that contained enough food for an entire day, and tell us not to worry because this food was ¨sin calorias¨, and the meat was fried in fat that was ¨sin cholesterol¨ (sin = without). Mandy translated this for me, and we both smiled and tried to hold in the laughs. Then, we proceeded to stuff ourselves by eating all of the food on our plates.
Besides the many funny and quirky things, their more serious side of life also began to make much more sense to us. Flor had been living in Argentina with her husband when she had inherited the farm from her father about five years ago. Her husband was not a farmer like most people around this area, and was not really all that handy either. She had moved back to Chile to take care of the farm and try to keep it in the family. In an effort to make it viable, she had developed the natural thermal pools for tourism. She had a Cabaña built along with picnic facilities, huts around the pools for privacy, and a small restaurant in the front of her house. However, things had not gone exactly as she wanted. The restaurant was shut down by needless bureaucracy. Apparently, the health dept. said she had to have water from the city to run a restaurant, which sounds quite ridiculous when your surrounded for miles by country. On top of this, the tourist dept. charges heavily for advertisement, which she couldn't afford, and Flor stated herself that she didn't have enough confidence in her language and negotiation skills to do the necessary business to get enough tourists to her land. It seemed as if the entire weight of her family, farm, and business was on her shoulders, and it was barely enough for her to handle. However, despite of all this, she still had an attitude of strength and determination.
All of these interesting, funny, and sad details left Mandy and I feeling fortunate that we had met Flor and her family and had the opportunity to help in the small ways that we did. More importantly, we hope that she can overcome her cancer, that Dorkas succeeds in her schooling, and that the farm will be profitable and remain in the family where it has been for hundreds of years. Besides that, we would love to remain in some sort of contact with her, and hopefully visit them sometime in the future.

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