Chile Before the Quake

Text & Photos: Julie Schwietert Collazo
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“When will we start learning and caring about places before disasters?” someone wrote on Twitter this weekend in response to the news about the earthquake in Chile.

I understand the impetus of the question, but there’s something naive about it as well.

There are so many places to learn and care about, so many people to know.

That’s one of the reasons why I travel. Though I know plenty about lots of places, I find that I only really begin to understand them when I’m there. And once I’ve visited, I become invested in these places in a way that doesn’t happen to me with those places I still don’t know with my feet or my eyes or my ears or nose… yet.
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That’s what I thought about after news of the quake.

I visited Chile in late 2008, and was moved by this sliver of a country. For one thing, it’s beauty exemplified: flawless blue sky stretching out over glacier-fed water in Torres del Paine, the view around each switchback of trail more beautiful than the one before it.

It’s a true beauty, but not an easy one. Standing here, almost as far south as one can be, the wind blows straight through you with an impersonal, punishing persistence. You learn to accept that what is beautiful must often be appreciated not unadulterated, but in its natural, wild, often messy state.

There were other reasons I was moved by Chile. Its recent history was palpable without being oppressive, its past real and present without having a stranglehold on its sense of now or possibilities for the future. The people I met were ambitious and creative; they were also honest about themselves and their country. “We don’t know how to market ourselves,” one tourism industry professional told me. “We have everything, but you can’t say that in an advertisement.”

Indeed.

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For more on Chile:

*My article about Google’s Person Finder app and its use in the Chile quake on MatadorChange.

*Matt Scott, one of Matador’s extraordinary and efficient interns, put together our Chile Focus Page today, which is an archive of all the articles we’ve published about Chile since we launched in 2006.

*For more Chile before the quake photos, check out my Chile set on Flickr.