2010 June | Kyle Hepp

June 22, 2010

The other night I got tipsy with my suegra and we talked about Chile from the perspective of two expat women who have lived here a long time — one significantly longer than the other, but still. We got to talking about Chile’s isolation from the rest of the world.

In many ways, this is a very cool thing. Chile is so out of the way, that the people that come here, I generally find to be very random and very interesting. You don’t just happen to pass through Chile, the way you might just happen to pass through Mexico. No. You take a usually $700+ flight, for 9+ hours if you’re coming from most places in the U.S. or elsewhere outside of South America. That requires at least a minimal amount of thought on why in the world you’d want to go through all that effort to come to this little country at The End of The World, as I refer to it.

And Chile is very isolated geographically. The Andes Mountains separate it the Eastern part of the continent, the Pacific ocean is to the West, the Atacama (driest desert in the world) is to the North, and Patagonia wilderness is to the South. So right from the get-go, as the Spaniards were busy trying to colonize those crazy Mapuches, who fought to the bitter end (and continue to fight in the Southern Chile), they realized that this place wasn’t easy to get to. Once you got here, especially back in the day, when letter had to travel by boat, then by horse, then by lord knows what else, you were cut off from the rest of the world.

Then we have the dictatorship, which I’ve heard a lot Chileans say kept them isolated as well. That may be. I’m not a Pinochetian scholar. I do know that he was in power for 17 years and put a hefty tax on books in order to keep the people from reading.

But I think that the isolation comes more from inside Chilean minds than anywhere else. The earthquake seemed to make it very clear to me that Chile still retains much of their Us Against The World Mentality. All the way from up top — President Bachelet, initially refusing foreign aid — down to the country’s largest relief effort — called “Chile Helps Chile.”

I’m just going to say it — that’s a weird name. To me.

All I have to compare this against is my experience living in the U.S., and I can’t imagine that in the face of natural disaster we would entitle our relief efforts, “The USA helps The USA.” That seems very ethnocentric. Not that the U.S. is NOT ethnocentric. We sooooooo are. However, when it comes to helping abroad U.S. citizens give more than fairly generously and I think expect to be supported by fellow mankind around the globe, even if it’s in non-monetary ways. I can’t see us starting a campaign featuring the fact that we help ourselves.

About a month after the earthquake I saw a news reporter here talking about how the entire globe was still talking about Haiti and had already moved on from Chile. Um, yeah. Maybe that’s because Chile is screaming to the world, “We Help Ourselves!” Or maybe it’s because the catastrophe here wasn’t quite on the same scale. Take your pick.

This Us Against the World mentality does seem to be a driving force for the country of Chile to effectively work hard to be a better place. But I think it also gives Chileans tunnel vision and they forget that opening up to the rest of the world is not necessarily a bad thing. Implementing good ideas from around the globe doesn’t mean that Chile will become any less Chilean. Accepting help from abroad if necessary doesn’t mean that Chile isn’t capable of helping themselves. Chile is not alone. No one is alone these days. The world is way too small. Chile can and should help Chile. But they shouldn’t close the door on everybody else. That’s all I’m saying.

12 Comments

June 21, 2010

Carolina and Gabriel are SO good together.

17 Comments

Recently Andi left a comment on my blog that stuck with me — she said something along the lines of, “You always seem to photograph the most beautiful brides!”

Hace poco Andi dejo un comentarion en mi blog que se me quedo grabado — ella dijo algo como, “Tu siempre fotografias a las novias mas bonitas!”

It stuck with me…because it’s true. This wedding was absolutely not the exception to the rule. Ursula looked STUNNING. She had a dress custom made for her, and of course, my man Rodrigo did her hair and makeup. He’s the best, no doubt about it. But all her wedding fanciness isn’t really why Ursula was so beautiful on Saturday. She’s beautiful because she’s absolute sweetness, inside and out. Actually, Jaime even mentioned how sweet she was in his vows.

Se me quedo grabado por que es verdad. Esta boda definitivamente no fue la exepcion a la regla. Ursula se veia PRECIOSA. Tuvo un vestido hecho para ella, y por supuesto, Rodrigo hizo su pelo y maquillaje. Es le mejor, no hay duda. Pero todo esto no es la razon de por que Ursula se veia tan bella el Sabado. Ella es bella por que es absolutamente dulce, por dentro y por fuera. De hecho, Jaime incluso menciono su dulzura en sus votos.

All I have to say is that we are truly lucky to be able to work with couples as kind AND as good looking as Ursula and Jaime. It’s like we won the wedding photography lottery

Todo lo que tengo para decir es que somos realemte afortunados de poder trabajar con parejas tan simpaticas Y lindos como Ursula y Jaime. Es como si hubieramos ganado la loteria de las bodas

By the way, they tied the knot at the gorgeous Casa 18, a historic house turned event center, in downtown Santiago. It was one of the prettiest places we’ve ever worked at!

Por si acaso, se casaron en Casa 18, una casa historica convertida en centro de eventos, en el centro de Santiago. Fue uno de los lugares mas bonitos en los que hemos trabajdo!