These two photographs are of the house next door to the Casa Ursulina. Up until recently, the fence in front of the house was just a rickety bunch of sticks and cardboard and pieces of metal. This fence rounded the corner and went all down the block. Little by little over the past month, the sticks have been torn down and the cement wall in the second picture was put up. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this fence, and how it reflects on the larger reality in Chile.
Chile is at an interesting point in its development. Some people think of it as a "3rd world country," whereas others see it as well-developed and stable. The truth is somewhere between the two. The reality of Chilean life, as I've experienced it this year, is far from the extreme poverty I saw in Nicaragua and El Salvador. The country has many more resources and is, at this moment, politically stable (I love Michelle Bachelet, the Chilean president!). However, there is a facade that hides a lot of Chilean poverty.
The government provided and built most of the homes in our población. They are small duplexes that look pleasant from the outside, and it gives the illusion that the people who live in those homes have the basic resources they need to survive. Go inside of those homes, though, and listen to the people who live there, and you will quickly find that there is a lot of deep and hidden poverty here.
The fences in these photographs are the perfect example of that. Now, anyone walking by will see the nicely-built fence and assume that the homes behind that fence are similarly well-0ff. But the reality of the situation really hasn't changed. There are still multiple cramped houses crammed into one site, and the people who live there will still struggle to put bread on the table.
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