As I type this out, I'm watching the "teletón" on ChileTV- a 24-hour telethon to raise money for earthquake victims, under the mantra "Chile ayuda a Chile." Musicians, dancers, and other artists perform between commercials advertising what various corporations (Pepsi, Banco de Chile, Visa) are doing to assist with recovery efforts, and heart-wrenching videos of children recounting their loss and fear in the wake of the 8.8 magnitude earthquake. Each story is followed by an announcement of the massive donations of "impresarios" such as Sebastian Piñera, the Chilean President-Elect. It seems to be wrapping up now, following an address by Michelle Bachelet, the outgoing President. Bachelet, Piñera, and Chilean pop star Américo are leading the audience in singing the national anthem together, as tears stream down their faces. When the final total was announced, it was more than double the anticipated goal- US$ 57,064,454.73.
This is a good snapshot of the sentiment here in Santiago one week after the quake. The closest thing I have to an analogy is what I remember of the weeks after 9/11- flags in every window, painted car windshields with slogans like "Fuerza Chile," and "Chile va para arriba!" Rallies emphasizing national unity and solidarity with victims are taking place all over the city as donations of clothing and food pour in to "La Cruz Roja"- the Chilean Red Cross. This activity has definitely been building steam in the days after the quake, as those in Santiago with minimal damage have accounted for their families, taken stock of their own situation, and are beginning now to look outward, for ways to help others.
I absolutely love the other 17 students on my program. They are juniors and seniors from all over the country- Tufts, Villanova, Rhodes, Kenyon, Wheaton, Mt. Holyoke, and Macalester, to name a few. Some are future teachers, some love to go out dancing, some speak Spanish much better and others not quite as well as I do. The best stress reliever after the earthquake was just seeing everyone in the same room again after a long weekend, hugging and swapping expressions of relief and anxiety. Some of you know Will Cogswell, who also went to Asheville High- the absolute best moment of comic relief was the story of his attempt to put pants on during the 5th largest earthquake in recorded history. We were all crying, from laughing and Lord knows what else. Our Spanish classes have started, to everyone's relief- for once, language class seems less like didactic grammar and is instead the MOST relevant thing to our lives here. My poor teacher, Mabel, spends as much time answering our questions as she does giving us new information, and no one is afraid to speak up and make a mistake like in Spanish classes at home, so we discuss everything! We try not to speak English if we can help it, even outside of class or out at night, and that is some of the best learning we do- jogging each other's memory and reinforcing what we all went over that day in class.
On Friday the program took us to volunteer at La Cruz Roja, which has received an overwhelming amount of clothing donations- many with the store security tags on! We couldn't quite figure that out- were people stealing clothes in order to donate them, or donating stolen clothes out of guilt? I ended up traveling with our program directors and seven others to deliver supplies and food to La Victoria, a borough about 15 minutes away from the city center that sustained significant damage. We visited briefly with a family whose roof and interior walls had collapsed on more than half of the house- six hours before their new son Leonardo was born. His mother seemed shellshocked, dazed, grateful but unsure of what six gringos were doing in what was left of her home. There was little to be said on either end; there are no sufficient condolences, and if there were, my broken Spanish couldn't convey them. After ten or fifteen minutes we mumbled an apology, cooed over the baby, kissed everyone goodbye, and left the groceries on what had been the kitchen floor.
Chile is still in a state of emergency, but in downtown Santiago, one can hardly tell. The buses and metro are as full as ever, every day more caution tape disappears from sidewalks as windows are repaired and buildings given approval from engineers. Life is continuing more or less as normal- it would be theoretically possible for those of us in undamaged homestays to go from home to class and back every day without ever noticing there had been an earthquake, if not for the occasional late-night aftershock. But a ten minute bus ride outside downtown to the lower-income Barrios of Pudahuel, La Recoleta, or La Victoria reveals blocks of homes leveled, and those still standing lack power and water. The loss of life in Santiago was indeed minimal in comparison to Concepción and the coastal areas, but it would be lying to maintain that since the bankers and government officials (and international students) have returned to work, things are really "fine" here, when thousands are displaced and without basic necessities.
Even in my upper middle class, residential barrio of Ñuñoa, there are places where damage has been severe. A five minute bus ride from my apartment complex will take you to one just like it, maybe twenty years older, which has been declared structurally unsound. Huge faults in the walls are visible from the exterior, and grow wider with every aftershock. The professional organizations of Ñuñoa- psychologists, lawyers, architects, and engineers- are offering their services for free to those in the neighborhood who need them, and I walked around with my host mother, Elena, as she handed out flyers with their contact information to residents standing outside the ruined complex. Most spent their Saturday morning evacuating- piling mattresses, furniture, and boxes of clothes on the sidewalk to be hauled to the home of a family member or friend. Those without a place to go have set up tents in the lawn outside the building, serving lunch of pasta and powdered juice to the children, trying to maintain a sense of normalcy and routine as the stacks of belongings grow taller around them. Nearly all squeezed Elena's hand and thanked her profusely as she explained the services available and offered "expresiones de la solidaridad" to her neighbors. But after two hours or so, we took the bus home and ate lunch.
Its this alternate reality, the normal one, that I can't quite wrap my mind around. We are fine- things "aren't that bad" in Santiago. I have said this over and over to you all, and in my case, it's true. I have power, water, internet, a caring and attentive host mother, more food than I could ever eat, concerned program directors, and seventeen friends. I get to go out to dinner, to explore the city, to take taxis, to get ice cream, look for live music, do my homework- while others, two miles away, are camping out in front of their ruined apartment building, and in Concepción, neighbors are organizing to take night shifts guarding their belongings from thieves. Having seen it, destruction isn't hard to believe- it's the return to routine that keeps surprising me. My host family doesn't seem to feel the same way; this is, after all, part of life in Chile. Elena said the other day that if time stopped whenever there was an earthquake, nothing would ever get done. "You have to keep going," she said, "to continue. We're lucky we didn't have much damage, so we have a responsibility to help others. But we can't just stop our lives."
