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By Russell Schulz (Austin, Texas)

(Ed. Note: What is the perception of Chile that is taken back home by the thousands of North American tourists visiting Chile each year? Below, find a fascinating essay by a recent visitor to Chile, who contrasts the mood he found here with the mood of the United States he just returned to).

I’ve just returned from a visit to Chile, and found the mood there quite different from the mood in the US.

Memories of Augusto Pinochet’s ugly military dictatorship are fading, pushed away by optimism and hope. Openness abounds, and there has been a huge sigh of relief in the land. Chileans have rolled up their sleeves and gone to work on their future. Santiago is being cleaned up and the infrastucture rebuilt. There’s an amazing project underway to build a hidden expressway under the bed of the Mapocho River, which cuts through the center of town. On the left bank of the river, in the shadow of new luxury high-rise condos and hotels, a re-energized Bellavista flourishes as a bohemian entertainment district.

At the University of Chile, the noise of construction and renovation interrupts classroom lectures. The cutting-edge computer science department is in a building that is sunny and open.

Fifteen years ago the windows of the building were equipped with metal grates to keep out the government’s tear gas canisters.

Several alternative newspapers have sprung up, the likes of which were never seen in Pinochet’s day. One of them, The Clinic, is named after the place where Pinochet was apprehended in England. It’s a tabloid of the sort seen in many US cities: both naughty and nice and full of news for the common good---or so the editors say. It’s not always enlightening, but it’s the free press. And it’s usually an interesting read.

Chileans have made a national hero of poet Pablo Neruda, who believed his calling was to celebrate the “quiet dignities” of ordinary people. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1971, and in Chile this is celebrated as a national holiday. Chileans know he’s an unlikely candidate for national sainthood: mostly red and inconsistent in virtually everything except his passion for the people. His three homes have been restored and become places of pilgrimage. The most beautiful is at Isla Negra, where he and his wife are buried on a bluff overlooking the Pacific. It’s an eccentric, rambling place---lofty and cluttered like his mind, filled with found junque that he transformed into something beautiful.

Gays have become more public and therefore more accepted. Same-sex couples stroll down the boulevard in fashionable Providencia. Bellavista has a number of gay clubs. Don’t show up before midnight: this is Chile. Machos is a hugely popular television soap about a family with eight sons. Folks think the most endearing son is the gay one. He’s not weird; he’s gorgeous, he’s a doctor, and he’s getting himself together. How’d this happen in a Catholic country? Last year Pablo Illanes, the gay writer and director of the show, was on the cover of Sábado magazine and the subject of a 6-page interview.

My memories of Chile include boundless friendliness and hospitality. My traveling companion, Bob Dailey, lived in Chile for four years and we spent many good times reconnecting with his Chilean friends. But generosity of spirit wasn’t theirs alone. Folks such as the doormen at the apartment and the store clerks were remarkably friendly and hospitable too. I don’t believe that Chile is without grouches and curmudgeons. My point is: folks generally appear to feel good about what’s going on.

My memories include glorious Valparaiso, a harbor town that’s stacked up alarmingly on hills and cliffs. The houses are painted purple or red or blue or yellow and even the poorest citizens enjoy views of one of the most spectacular harbors in the world. My memories include Viña del Mar, with its beaches and restaurants and vacation condos, as well as suburban Santiago, which looks a lot like---I have to admit it---suburban L.A. I remember El Quisco, a beautiful beach resort that ordinary folks can afford, and gorgeous, forested Tunquen, where there’s no electricity but plenty of sun to charge solar batteries. Of course, Chile is fresh seafood and fruits and vegetables. And even cheap wine is good in Chile.

Chile is also pollution. The Andean foothills, east of Santiago, usually must be viewed through a pink cloud. On bad days---there are quite a few of them---they disappear completely. In Viña swimming pools have been built on the waterfront because the ocean is so foul. Chile is poverty: dusty settlements and crowded urban neighborhoods and open sewers.

Chile is the Catholic Church: in downtown Santiago, two magnificent and busy cathedrals with powerful advocacy programs, and the illustrious Catolica Universidad. In Peñalolén I visited the Santa Cruz home for abandoned children, run by the Holy Cross Brothers. The most excellent and faithful living was going on at this last place it seemed to me.

When I got back home to George Bush’s US I found the mood quite different from what I’d experienced in Chile. The country seems disillusioned and un-generous and polarized. The non-war isn’t going well and everybody knows it. Our traditional allies haven’t changed their minds about the justice in what we’re doing. We haven’t been able to find those much-needed weapons of mass destruction. It seems like the US made a bad mistake. It seems like we were lied to by our leaders.

Is the US trustworthy?

That question is being asked around the world and usually the answer is not what we want to hear. It seems that we if can’t put our faith in our government or our mega-corporations, we can at least get the dreaded Martha Stewart in the slammer. And while we’re feeling insecure about ourselves, we can re-write the US Constitution to keep the gays down. How’d we get to this place? How did a great nation become fearful and mean?

As I’m writing, my mind wanders back to La Moneda, the presidential residence in downtown Santiago. In one of the courtyards there’s a life-size metal sculpture that depicts a man stepping through an opening door. He seems very determined and in a hurry. The sculptor named the piece Quo vadis?---“Where are you going?” I think the sculptor wanted to ask that question of his country. Chile: where are you going?

I want to ask the same question of my country.