The last 48 hours were filled with so many “well that just happened” moments and “Holy cow, my life is fantastic” realizations that I can barely wrap my head around it all. When I first planned to come to Chiloe, there was one place I really wanted to go: Isla Mechuque. Guidebooks describe it as a “flashback experience” and numerous people have told me that it is a place I would go and stay forever. Sold. (Un)fortunately, it is a little off the beaten path, and I could tell immediately that getting there would be a bit of a challenge. There was one tour group in town that occasionally offers trips, but I was not about to go searching through the city of Castro during the low season of tourism to find 10 eager foreigners who want to pay 20,000 pesos to spend a few hours on a remote island, eating curantro, huddling together in the rain, and listening to some obnoxious guide talk through a microphone. No. Not my style. But where there is a will, there is a way…and trust me...there was a pretty strong will.
Let me just fill you in on the basic premise of this place. I may not be able to get you on the same page, but maybe I can get you reading the same book. Isla Mechuque is one of four small islands located 45 km off the Eastern coast of the island Chiloe, the large Chilean Island off the Patagonian coast. Of these four tiny islands, Mechuque is the largest and most populated with 128 families. Añihue, the next largest, has 78 families. There is no regularly scheduled public transportation to and from this island. Instead, there is a network of privately owned lanchas that make the trip 2, 3, maybe 4 times a week. No one on the main island really knows the schedule of the lanchas. It would appear that only Mechuquens and their food suppliers are aware of the exact intricacies of the lanchas. Apart from the occasional trip to see family on the mainland or the rare need to buy something particular (like a stove, for example), the people on Mechuque don´t really interact much with the mainland. The majority of the families are self-sufficient, producing what they need on their own family plot to survive. We are not talking about farmers who raise crops to sell to their neighbors or to some distant community. On Mechuque, life is survival. Pure and simple. Emphasis on simple. They only have electricity from 7pm to midnight, and there are maybe half a dozen cars on the island. They have a hospital with one nurse, a weekly dentist, and a monthly doctor and they have a school with about 20 students. They live with what they need; no more, no less.
If you asked me how I felt after my first few hours on the island, I would have told you I stumbled upon Paradise. I very well could have. Maybe it was the journey—a long three hour boat ride navigating through a network of small green islands. Maybe it was the weather—I saw sunshine for the first time in nearly a week. Maybe it was the people—I got to the island without any idea of where I would sleep that night and the first woman I met off the boat said “Well, Child, you can sleep in my house, of course!”. Maybe it was the run—the feeling of freedom and accomplishment after running from one side of the island to the other over a large hill on Mechuque´s only dirt road. Or maybe it was the view—from the top of Mechuque´s hill I could clearly see the chain of four islands, scattered with small family farmhouses and working fields, surrounded by clear blue wáter, and dominated by the ever-present Andes mountain range in the distance. Surely it was a combination of all of these elements, topped with the shocking realization that I was about to experience a way of life I have never before imagined.
Two days later, I got on the morning lancha to make my way back to the mainland. By now, my opinions had changed a little. I still felt that this was one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen in my entire life. However, I could say with certainty that I had no desire to stay there forever. It is kind of ironic, I think. After weeks and weeks of raving about the need for community—how community will solve all our problems and bring us pure happiness—I lived the reality of a very small commuity. And all I can is that it is EXHAUSTING. Everyone knows absolutely everything about everyone. There are no secrets. There is no where to hide. I am not exagerating. Let´s take your medical history, for example. I spent a day helping out the island´s only nurse: a 20 year old girl who is in charge of every family on each of the four islands. She spent the day prescribing people aspirin, giving them their government-issued-nutrient-filled-milk-powder, and talking to them about their neighbors´mental and physical problems. I spent the night trying to justify why I choose to travel alone, to take my afternoon walks alone, to run alone, to eat alone. I read on a sign in the doctor`s office that their advice for having mental health is to take time for yourself, to learn to live for your own happiness; yet there is no privacy and there is no way to advócate for yourself. If you leave, you are a traitor. If you try to live independently, you are a crazy recluse. If you stay, you are hooked for life.
This is not a bad way of life, by any means. Everyone is incredibly friendly, whether by choice or peer pressure. After all, if you aren´t friendly everyone will know and everyone will complain. And if and when these global problems hit and we are all left without food or oil, the island of Mechuque will survive. But still, something was lacking. Like the farm in Tunuyan, their life was based on simplicity and survival. The empty feeling I got from both places was the same: life has to be about more than just survival. It was as if they were too self-sufficient. The community was so disconnected from the rest of the world, or even from the rest of Chile, that no one felt the need to learn about other cultures or other ideas. On paper, it was a community; but in practice, it was a series of self-sufficient people who did not really need each other. So I am updating my idea of community. A community—the ideal community that will save us—has to be a network of interconnected and interdependent people. They have to share with each other and to learn from each other. They have to share with outside communities (national and international) and to learn from outside communities. Because if we all resort to this other extreme, I think we`ll go crazy.
¨Las personas son como pajaros estas dias. Pero yo…no…yo soy una piedra. Estoy aquì y siempre voy a estoy aquì¨
¨People are like birds these days. But me, no, I am a rock. I am here and I will always be here¨
-Woman on the boat ride over to Isla Mechuque
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