Photo Galleries

Potrerillos - Viejo Amigo                            

Este poema fue sometido por Héctor Maldonado Aravena, el hijo de Héctor Maldonado Campillay y Aminda Aravena, quien nacio y vivio en Potrerillos y también vivio y trabajó en El Salvador. La poema fue escrito por su padre quien, como pueden ver, tenía un cariño fuerte para Potrerillos. Él padre también escribió dos libros con la historia del Potrerillos & El Salvador (“El Alegre y Legendario Potrerillos de Ayer” y “Albores del Mineral El Salvador”) y estaba escribiendo un tercer libro (“Potrerillos del 50 Los Grandes Cambios”) cuando falleció hace unos años. Héctor ahora vive en Copiapo y con su madre con quien está trabajando para que el tercer libro sea publicado.

This poem was submitted by Héctor Maldonado Aravena, the son of Héctor Maldonado Campillay and Aminda Aravena, who was born and lived in Potrerillos and also lived and worked in El Salvador. It was written by his father who, as you can see, had a great love for Potrerillos. His father also wrote two books about the history of Potrerillos & El Salvador (“El Alegre y Legendario Potrerillos de Ayer” & “Albores del Mineral El Salvador”) (“The Happy & Legendary Potrerillos of Yesterday” & “The Beginnings of the El Salvador Mine”) and he was working on a third book (“Potrerillos del 50 Los Grandes Cambios”) when he passed away a few years ago. Héctor now lives in Copiapo and with his mother with whom he working to get the third book published.

A crude translation...

Potrerillos, old friend   
Where have your pioneers gone,   
with their dreams and joys; with their triumphs and failures?   
Where are their voices and songs   
that once made your remoteness happy ?   
   

They will no longer be heard.   
Perhaps they stayed   
in your splendid sun of days gone by   
or beneath the silent snow that covered your nameless streets.   
   

In the irreversible march of time   
only your memory will remain,   
When this earth, exhausted,    
the mineral vein that gives life   
becomes a desert again,   
as it was  centuries ago,   
when it was covered by   
the sacred plant of the Inca Tupac Yupanqui,   
the first conqueror of Chile.