A group of miners was trapped in a collapsed mine in Chile for 69 days, half a mile down. It took a major feat of engineering to get them out, by drilling a 2-foot wide hole all the way down, and then sending a man-sized capsule down to retrieve the miners, one by one.Last night they were finally ready to bring the miners out! I was just about to get Cory ready for bed when the first miner was about to be rescued, so we watched it on a live feed on my laptop. It was all in Spanish, but no translation needed! It was just amazing.
I didn't realize that we were watching the very first miner come up, Valencio. Actually, it took me a few minutes to realize that the guy was getting into the capsule DOWN IN THE MINE and that we were watching a Webcam down there. Unbelievable. I hadn't watched anything about the event, just kept hearing updates on NPR, and willing this day to come soon enough that they would all be all right.
An amazing experience to watch this.
As we waited while the miner in the capsule was being raised up to the surface (nearly 20 long minutes!), I was telling Cory about how far away it was (showed him on a globe, actually), and that it was actually happening right as we were watching. I could tell he could just barely grasp that - just didn't seem possible. We also talked about why it was also dark in Chile at the same time it was dark at our house, even though they're half a world away. Great chance to talk about which parts of the earth the sun shines on when (that globe came in handy again :P). Definitely worth a bit of a late bedtime for all that togetherness and sharing, and especially for him being able to witness the experience firsthand.
Cory took a front page clipping from the newspaper to school this morning. And then as I was taking some books to the library there before heading to work, he came trotting up from class to ask the librarian for information about mines and Chile. Emergent curriculum in action!
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