1. Published a second story in the Santiago Times, this one about the appeals against HidroAysen being presented in the Supreme Court just before Christmas.

2. Left Puerto Montt and rode for 12 hours on a series of buses and ferries to arrive in Chaiten, a town nearly wiped off the map by the eruption of Volcan Chaiten three years ago. Less than half of the original inhabitants still live in the ashy remains. I spent one night here with a group of friends of the road, and visited local hot springs, before hitching my way south to Villa Santa Lucia and Futaleufu. I posted a new album of photos of the ferries, hot springs, and friends, here.

3. Spent ten days in Futaleufu rafting on the river of the same name. Although the Futaleufu River is one of Chile’s most famous whitewater destinations, it too is under threat of being dammed. I wrote an article about Expediciones Chile and the company owner’s work to open a dialogue with the hydroelectric developers in hopes of finding a way to share Chile’s rivers. I sent it to the newspaper today, and will post again when it’s published. I spent Christmas hiking high in the mountains near Futaleufu. I camped alone, next to a raging glacial creek, and drank boxed wine and toasted to friends and family and loved ones.

4. It took me three days to hitchhike south from Futaleufu to Coyhaique, first with a Chilean friend, then with a fellow New Englander, and finally with a young man from Belgium, Nico. Nico and I waited eight hours before getting a ride, but just as we were about to give up hope, Gustavo and Luis Miguel and their pearly blue Mercedes truck rolled up and offered us a ride all the way to Coyhaique. There was only one catch. Before we could go to Coyhaique, we had to detour almost all the way to Argentina to build runway markers for a ranch’s private airstrip. The resulting 24 hours – dusty, hungry, bumpy hours in the back of the truck – were the kind of traveling hours I live for. I could write a book about just that trip, through the jungly glaciated cordillera to the dry, rolling pampa, and back. In the meantime, however, there are pictures.

5. I have less than one month left to raise funds on my Spot.Us page! I am very grateful for how quickly you all have responded, but we can’t stop yet. I still need 31 twenty-dollar days in less than 31 days! $635. THANK YOU to the donors of the past month: Jennifer “Jeni Brazofuerte” Armstrong, J.D. Lasica, Jeffery Aberbach, Clysta Seney, Benno Friedman, Michelle Powers, and MY MOM! Don’t forget that there are neat little gifties tied to each donation. $20 not only funds my work for a day, but also gets you a signed 8 x 12 print of one of my photos. Even $10 gets you a personalized thank you post card from Chile! Please help spread the word.

Thanks for reading, thanks for donating, thanks for your moral and emotional support – I’m halfway through the trip. I’ll be back before we know it. Stay tuned.

Steve’s paper is short-staffed, but needs more coverage on HidroAysen; I’m writing about the topic, and need publishing clips to flesh out my resume. “I’ll publish whatever you write,” he tells me, “and the more you write the better.” Great! I’m thinking. I’ll have an outlet for my articles, an editor and sounding board and resource who can help me sort through my research and develop my story. But there’s a catch. “I can’t pay you. There’s absolutely no budget. I’m sorry.” I’m too excited about getting published to be terribly upset by this. I need his help, he needs my story, and the potential synergy appeals to me. I agreed, happily. Life is good!

Last night, however, I couldn’t sleep. An email I’d received from a friend and mentor ran around in my head, poking at my new excitement and confidence. She’s a freelance writer, a very successful one, and I trust the advice she gives me. I wrote to tell her about my project, and about my fundraising website. “Bravo!” she responded at first. “You’re an excellent writer, you WILL get where you’re going.” Picture me patting myself on the back. But, her tone shifted, “treat your writing like a business, not a charity. Turn your hand from palm up (for a hand out) to palm down (tapping away at your computer sending proposals).” This woman has given me a lot of advice over the past year that I’ve known her, but the title theme has always been Get PAID. Anyone can write for free, and accepting unpaid assignments devalues the quality of my work and lessens my legitimacy as a professional writer. Deep sigh.

She’s right, ultimately. I need to send my time writing and presenting pitches if I want to get published. And I’m not going to be able to ask for donations from friends for every writing project I undertake. Nor do I intend to. This project is the start of my career, and I feel okay about asking for financial help as a kick-off, not as a long term income. The good news is that I AM pitching. The bad is that so far Steve-who-can’t-pay-me is the only one who has responded. What’s a professional to do? The exasperating truth of freelance writing is that you need to be published in order to get published, and although I agree with and appreciate my mentor’s advice, I feel like I need to take the opportunities that are presented to me. And keep pushing forward for bigger and better opportunities. The truth is that I am new at this. I feel like I need the practice and experience working with a newspaper, and with Steve, I’ll have one-on-one attention and guidance that I’m not sure another publication would be able to give me. And because he won’t be paying me, I retain the copyright to my work, and can send the finished products to other publications.

I am faking it til I start making it, stumbling along the best I can. Continuing to move forward, following my instincts and the advice of others as best I can. Hoping (and working!) for the best. So. EXCITED to be making progress on the publishing front. My first story should be appearing in tomorrow’s Santiago Times, about a group of cyclists I’m going to be following along the Carretera Austral! I’m also celebrating 51% raised on my fundraising site!! THANK YOU to Leland Thompson, Ryan Mortimer, Beth Wellington, and Myriah Pahl! Here’s how I’m choosing to look at this. Those of you who are contributing funds aren’t giving me charity. You’re paying me for the work that I’m doing for Steve, which I will put on my publishing resume as I continue to approach other magazines and newspapers, and eventually get a PAID assignment!

And…mentor friend, if you’re reading this, THANK YOU for the kick in the pants. I hear you. I’m working on it. Thanks for sticking with me.

I arrived on a night bus, last Sunday morning. 12 hours from Santiago isn’t bad, as buses go, but I’ve never been good at sleeping sitting up. I dozed, listened to Cold War Kids, TV on the Radio, and thought of other trips, in other countries. A waxing moon yellowed near the horizon and kept me company for a time, but I dozed off before it set, and woke to blackness. I’m happy to be out of Santiago, in a place where trekking pants and fleece don’t draw stares. Happy to greet Orion’s starry belt and the Southern Cross in a mostly dark sky. I’m tenting in the back yard of the hostel to save money, but it feels like an upgrade to a private room after three weeks in a dorm in Santiago.

Work has slowed, a bit. Leaving the city makes me feel less anxious to GODOMORENOWFASTER, but I’m eager to move farther south, and I’d rather do the intensive researching before I get there so that I can enjoy the new and wild and different Patagonia, the one I haven’t seen yet. I did a short hike a few days ago with an older man from the U.S., and I’m doing most of my reading and writing from the back porch. It stays light until 10pm; it takes a concentrated effort not to work until then.

It’s nearly Christmas! And all of my gifts are coming early! The little fundraising bar on my Spot.Us site is speeding towards $2,000 faster than I could have hoped for! Since my last post on Nov. 29, ten days ago, I’ve jumped from 15% to 48%! Thank you, friends! It’s actually a bit overwhelming, the support that you all are heaping on me. I’m not entirely sure how to express my gratitude, other than to say, again, THANK YOU, to Aunt Jeanine and Uncle Larry, Jeanine Newell, Jill Duffield, Jeremiah Schwartz, Kat Altieri, Alison Jeannette, Karen Johnson, Claudia Gerard, Katie Byrd, Melissa Davis, Aunt Ann, Matt Strine, Wade Permar, Karen Ryman, Mia Fuentebella, Ruben Ortiz, Bryan Rennekamp, and Alex Jahp. Wow. I’m almost halfway there.

A couple more things to check out, if you’re interested:
Recent update on my research and the dams.
Pictures of the trip thus far!

Indeed. And where is Aysen, anyway? Three months ago when I started researching this story, I didn’t know, either. It took a bit of research to find Aysen on the map, or rather, the communities that make up the region of Aysen. Less than 100,000 people live there. Most are campesinos, or gauchos, people who live off the land and raise cattle; others operate tourist businesses. There’s only one real road through the region, the Carretera Austral, and this is split by lakes and fiords that can only be crossed by ferry. Aysen is remote, uncivilized, untouched, and it’s only a small part of the whole of Patagonia. Just ask HidroAysen: they have very stylish multimedia on their website that demonstrate just how small an area their dams will affect in relation to the whole of Patagonia and all of Chile.

But what is not small about Aysen is the sense of identity that its inhabitants possess. Immediately before my appointment at El Clinic, I stood in a public park with a group of students from Aysen, now living here in Santiago to study at the University of Chile. They all but stood in a line in front of me, waiting their turn to rage against HidroAysen and express their frustration with a government that they feel doesn’t have their best interests at heart. Even the national NGOs fighting against the dams were subject to the students’ critique. “Aysen is more than trees and rivers. We honor the natural environment, sure, but it’s our communities, above all, that we are trying to save.” Their passion was infective, and I felt myself deflate like a punctured tire when I spoke to my friend at the bar and heard his very well-informed impression of the global political climate.

And that’s where I saw it: the heart of Patagonia, and the core of my nascent story. Dams are being constructed all over the world. HidroAysen is just another large corporation doing what corporations do best. The political history of Chile is truly relevant only in Chile, and the environmental rules and regulations are only interesting when compared to those of other countries. Whether or not Chile needs these dams is a question for the energy analysts. But why the world should pay attention to Aysen, and why it is worthy of our attention: this is my job. I’m best at bringing isolated parts of the world into focus, giving color and life to the specks on the map. And so my focus has begun to zero in on Aysen itself and its people. Still with an unbiased approach, for there are people in Aysen who are just as firmly pro-dams as today’s students are against them. But who they are, why they are for or against, how their lives will be changed by this project, and what is important to them, this is where my story is. More to come.

This is one of my favorites.

Speaking of gaiety, I’ve reached 5% of my $2,000 goal on Spot.Us! Thanks to Alan Lindsey and Kelly Beck (Tobin) for your help! Someone asked me today if it’s possible to support my cause without joining Spot.Us. We’re forced to put our names and email addresses and credit cards into so many questionable forms on the web; I understand the hesitation. My response is an equally hesitant yes. If you’d like to support me but want to keep it a bit more private, we can work something out. I appreciate any help that someone is willing to offer. However, by donating through Spot.Us, you’re holding me accountable for completing my project. You’re legitimizing my work and demonstrating a vote of confidence in my abilities as a professional journalist. This is about more than helping me pay for a night’s accommodation in Santiago; this is paying me for my hard work in researching and developing the story of the inhabitants of Patagonia’s Aysen Region! So, however you choose to support me, I will thank you profusely. But please do consider typing your name and spam-email-address into just one more online form. C’mon. It’s easy. Do it for the Ayseninos.

When the next train approached, it was equally loaded, but this time I was at the front of the platform and forced my way into half a square foot that was open near the door. There was a prolonged squeezing sensation as two more people wiggled on board and then pressed themselves against the crowd to avoid the closing door. I couldn’t reach any handholds, but I didn’t need to. The train bolted forward, and as a unit, the crammed mass of humanity leaned backward slightly, cushioned and held upright by proximity. Sleepiness forgotten, I studied the people around me with all of my senses save taste. I counted seven split ends in the orangey dyed hair of the woman in front of me, and heard the breathy laugh and eye roll of a woman behind me. With one elbow I experienced the starched six pack of a man to my left; with my forearm, the tired back of a woman who smelled of lemon cleaner and dust. For six stops, I rode in intimate and anonymous communication, protected and supported by this complacent and temporary association of metro-riders.

Disembarking at Universidad la Catolica, I felt giddy, elated, uplifted by the brief but fascinating ride. For those ten minutes, I was a part of a whole: a Chilean whole. Not a tourist, just a body against five others. Weird, perhaps, but it cleared my head of the entire day, buoyed my reeling mind and renewed my sense of purpose. I do belong here! I am capable of not only completing, but nailing this project.

This was my state of mind when I opened my email and saw that I have earned %3 of my fundraising goal in one day! Katie Leum, Brin Finnegan, Syreena Mortimer, and Jordan James: THANK YOU. Thank you for being part of my supporting community. Thanks for validating my efforts and holding me up in the speeding subway train that is my life. Thanks for feeding and housing me for four days, which is exactly how many days I’ve been here! Let’s keep this up. If I can get at least $20 worth of donations every day for the next two and a half months, I’ll break even. Who will be the next to step up to the plate? Find out more here: Hydroelectric Dams Proposed in Patagonia meet Fierce Resistance.