Amanda’s Chile Moments

As my friend Lois was giving me a ride from church to the mall today, we were talking about how Chile is a “crisis-oriented” society. In general, this means that most Chileans wait until there is a crisis to react.

Let me give an example: cell phones. We have a cell phone plan through work. Every time any of us travels out of the country, we are reminded not to make or receive calls because of the high cost. Our Chilean staff members often ask us, however, if we can simply turn off their phones after they make a certain amount of calls each month so that they don’t overspend. They just don’t have the discipline to stop calling until the bill arrives and they are in a crisis!

Another example would be car maintenance. Mark and I sold our vehicle in November last year because its engine basically melted. We chalk that loss up to the poor maintenance of the vehicle by the previous owner. Chileans often do not take their cars in for the scheduled maintenance checks, and do-it-yourself auto repairs are completely unknown here. Oil changes happen after the check oil light comes on, if you know what I mean. My friend Lois counts herself blessed that she knows many transitory foreigners to buy quality used vehicles from.

But who ever taught us who were raised in the States to be “non-crisis-oriented”? How do we learn to plan ahead for foreseeable or possible problems? We Americans hope bad things don’t happen to us and we concern ourselves with trying to prevent them, whereas Chileans know that bad things will happen to them and they don’t stress about them until they are actually happening.

FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers, whoever. But we all know that someone is to blame for the mess that happened in New Orleans. Someone didn’t plan ahead well, and as a nation we are appalled by it.

Here in Chile, the town of Chaitén recently was evacuated because the volcano near town erupted. After most people were evacuated, a winter storm blew in from sea and flooded whatever was left of the small town far in the south of the country. The town is ruined, gone. But no one here is accusing the government of lack of foresight, no one thinks there should have been better planning. They just want the government to give them a stipend so they can start a new life in a new place. Fascinating to me: they expect the government to react to the crisis, not prevent it.

I’m going to stop writing now so I can go plan my meals for the week, make my grocery list, and thus avoid any crises in my own home. Constantly reacting to a crisis is a part of Chile I just can’t quite get into.