The faded light of dawn appeared out of the airplane window, barely illuminating a dark gray wall of mountains.
There were no houses, no lights. Just the mountains, surrounded in early morning solitude.
I had no idea where I was, only where I was headed. And I had no idea what to expect when I got there.
Some time later, the plane touched down in Santiago, Chile. I groggily made my way through passport control and customs, still weary from the overnight flight. I quickly knocked the rust off my Spanish as I attempted to locate the point person for my study abroad program.
I had never met this man. I just had a name and a phone number. Fortunately, I found him a short time later.
After a few more students made their way through customs, we all got into a van and embarked on a 90-minute journey to the Pacific Coast.
All of this was new to me. I had never been to South America before. And I’d never traveled abroad alone.
Still, as we made our way through arid landscapes and coastal mountain passes, something seemed strikingly familiar about where I was heading.
This odd déjà vu continued after I arrived in Viña Del Mar — the seaside city that would my home for the next six weeks. Even after taking a nap and walking around the city, I still felt strangely comfortable.
I had never before felt like this after leaving the United States. When I traveled to Spain, France, and Italy with my family as a teenager, the unfamiliarity overwhelmed me at first.
You might think this was due to the language barrier. But I felt the same way when I traveled to England, or even Canada.
Something just felt off compared to what I was used to. And I had to adjust — quickly.
But Chile was different. It reminded me of California.
Yes, the architecture was different and everyone spoke Spanish. But the landscape and the cuisine had a distinct California vibe.
It rained every day of my first week in Chile. The skies were foreboding and the sidewalks were flooded. This all seemed so un-Californian, and it should have broken my spell. But I ignored the reminders from the heavens.
I still felt calm and reassured. The locals were quiet and reserved, a perfect match for my introverted nature. The food included steak sandwiches, French fries and hot dogs with avocado and mayonnaise — all close enough to what I could get back home. And the streets were broad and easy to navigate, much like a city in the United States.
My mood only changed when I found out about student protests engulfing the area. Students had taken over the campus of a university in nearby Valparaiso, where one of my classes was to be held. Other students were out protesting in the center of the city.
My class in Valparaiso was moved to a different building, and it went on as scheduled. But we were warned not to check out the protests going on nearby.
The Caribineros de Chile — Chile’s national police force — routinely use tear gas and water cannons to break up protests, we were told. And the study abroad program leaders didn’t want us to risk getting injured.
My roommate ignored this advice at first. As a journalism major, he felt it was his duty to cover what was going on. So, he headed into the fray of a protest.
He returned with bloodshot eyes and a runny nose. He had stayed a couple of blocks away from the action, but tear gas doesn’t discriminate. After he washed his face, he told me he wouldn’t be heading out to check out the protests again.
The entire scenario was unsettling to me.
This was years before the Ferguson protests in Missouri, where police used tear gas and rubber bullets to assert control. Protests in the United States were mostly peaceful back then. Or at least that’s what I believed to be true.
Seeing police using such force against similar types of protests was jarring. While I had heard much about the atrocities of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, those days were long gone in Chile. And everything else I had seen on the ground to that point reminded me of American values.
It was my We’re not in Kansas anymore moment. I might have felt at home, but I was very much away.
So many memories come to mind when I think of my time in Chile.
There were the exotic ones: Riding horses over massive sand dunes. Skiing high in the Andes. Seeing the Southern Cross in the night sky of the Elqui Valley. And exploring Santiago — a mountainous city that seemed like a cross between Denver and New York.
And there were the familiar ones: Watching a movie at a Cinemark movie theater. Shopping at the mall. Watching the sun set over the ocean.
The similarities outstrip the differences, in my mind — even today. Even though I knew I was abroad — in a nation where police used brute force to quell unrest — the familiarity of my experience still makes me nostalgic.
Chile seemed to be proof that American-style economics and structural ideals could thrive abroad. Yes, the United States had taken some damaging steps to bring these ideals to the nation, including supporting a coup and the deadly Pinochet dictatorship that followed. But in the post-Cold War — and post-Pinochet — era, Chile appeared to be thriving and harmonious.
That synergy with my home nation is what kept me calm throughout my time south of the equator. It’s what made six weeks on another continent feel more like a day at the beach than a plunge into an icy lake. It’s what makes me yearn to return someday.
But now, I wonder if it all was a mirage.
Recently, there’s been lots of unrest in Chile.
Throughout Santiago, people have taken to the streets to protest the inequities of life there.
It all started with a 30 peso increase to the Santiago Metro fares.
This would be equivalent to a 4 cent fare increase to a public transit system in the United States. Seemingly innocuous.
However, thousands of Chileans saw it differently.
For the cost of living in Chile has gone up in recent years. But wages and employment opportunities have not kept up.
The financial situation has trapped many Chileans in poverty or on the lower end of the middle-class. The stagnation carries across generations — even older Chileans are finding that their pensions and retirement funds are far less valuable than they once expected.
It’s been a fraught situation. But the Metro fare increase was the spark that brought it to the fore.
It’s not about 30 pesos. It’s about 30 years, the protesters have been chanting. And as their anger has risen, the protests have turned ever more violent.
There are reports of protesters breaking store windows, spraying graffiti on buildings, setting fires and defacing much of the Metro system — previously one of the nicest in the world.
Police have responded with the usual display of force — tear gas and water cannons. But this time things feel different.
This time the unrest is widespread. This time the world is watching.
It makes me sad to see all of this. To see the Chile I got to know and love go up in flames.
For Chileans are not normally flamboyant or bombastic. Unlike their neighbors to the east in Argentina, Chileans are generally reserved and respectful.
To see so many of them turning to violence reminds me that they must really be hurting. They must feel as if they are without hope, and out of options for peaceful discourse.
This breaks my heart.
In my mind, Chile is a magical place. A nation with a unique mix of natural beauty, kind people and western ideals.
I’m not alone.
Many others have looked with wonder at Chile’s rise to a capitalist power over the last several decades. They refer to Chile as an economic miracle.
And instead of focusing on the nation’s checkered past, they point to its bright future.
Have we all been hoodwinked? Have we deluded ourselves into thinking that silence equated to success?
I certainly hope not.
For if capitalism has failed Chile, I shudder to think of the alternatives.
All across South America, from Argentina to Venezuela and Bolivia to Brazil, Chile’s neighbors have been roiled by political and economic crises in recent years. I wonder if a move to a different model would yield the same destructive results.
But mostly, I wonder if my memories of Chile were even reliable.
People seemed happy and content. But could they have been coerced into silence by the memories of the dictatorship? Or by the police’s heavy-handed responses to any sign of unrest?
It’s certainly possible.
Either way, I hope Chile can resolve its current issues peacefully. And I hope Chileans can find a future full of prosperity.
My home away from home deserves nothing less.