Chile

Photo by Tamara Trivino Ibar

I have been procrastinating writing my report on Chile. No reason other than that procrastination comes naturally to me.

But the time has come because the week of September 11th is nearly over. And September 11th is a pivotal date in Chile's modern history. September 11, 1973, is the day Augusto Pinochet, in a coup d'etat backed by the CIA, toppled President Salvador Allende, a socialist who was democratically elected. Pinochet established a military dictatorship and stayed in power for the next 17 years.

So maybe he wrangled Chile's economy, but at what price? Pinochet's name is virtually synonomous with human rights violations. And as I've dug, I've gotten the impression that the societal instability in Chile that apparently scared the U.S. enough to help overthrow a democratically elected leader was actually stirred up, in part, by opposition funded by the CIA.

Ah, but I do not want to make this report about how horrifying it is when U.S. foreign policy is shaped by fear, arrogance and greed.

I'd rather write about how wild it is that Chile is nearly three thousand miles north to south, but not even 300 miles across at its widest point (unless you count Easter Island, 2,000 miles west).

Or that the northern part of the country includes the Atacama Desert, which is the driest place on earth.

Or that the literacy rate is higher than 95% and that Chileans call their country país de poetas, land of poets. Chile has had two winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature: Gabriela Mistral in 1945 and Pablo Neruda in 1971. If I ever go to Chile, I want to visit Pablo Neruda's three homes.

Or that the Ceuca is the national dance (click here to see a video). How cool is that to have a national dance? Although I suppose if we had a national dance, it would probably be the square dance, and I had my fill of that in fifth grade p.e.

Next stop? Bali. I have made a pact with my friends Linda and Lisa. Within five years, we will have traveled to Bali together.