Tag: santiago-de-chile

By: Valentina Isabel Fernandez Weissmann, 14, Chile

The large city of Santiago de Chile lies beneath the translucent, pale gray and brown breath of pollution, suffocating to all; important to none, as the coal continues burning in people’s homes. This city was nurtured by mother nature, who, with a smile, brought an eternal sunlight in, keeping the flowers, with petals soft as silk, warm, as she swept her mighty hand across the vast mountain range, shaping the Andes. The summits accepted her will, creating a valley, meant to hold life for the people, the ones that now walk through the historical streets. 

They do not pause to give back to what Nature has provided. For now that she lays sick, from the fault of whom she empowered, the citizens of this marvelous country do not hand her the medicine that they could possess, through an effort sounding simple as being moral and principled. A physical effort is easily overcome, if the mind is strong; yet the effort of changing oneself, for good, to do  good, is one task that mankind continuously fails to fulfill, and it remains a task that humanity is obliged to do, if it wishes not its own destruction. 

And so the people of the city walk through the polluted streets, bottles and plastic thrown carelessly around, the choking of animals on glass and fabrics continuing,  ignored. The weeping ground continues shaking,  the humans uncaring of the damage they have caused, unaware of the valley in which they find life, and unaware of the mountains that surround them, protecting and sheltering. The pure,  enchanting giants that are mountains go unappreciated. It is a privilege to walk outside and behold the unreachable, and endless. Covered in snow, or in grass. Full of life, full of death. So gracefully created, so painfully destroyed.

And then, in the distance, a glimmer of hope. A stubborn little tree of thorns, thriving. A little girl, of five or four, pouring water on the growing desert plant, the action a small way towards healing the sick. The lights of the city like artificial fireflies, dancing through the night, replace the stars that would be seen if not for the very thing that is substituting them. There are flowers of all colors, of sizes big and small, interlacing or alone, but fewer and fewer species with each passing day. There are clouds white as jasmine, the swans of the sky; mountains striking and strong; snow puffy, soft, numbing cold; grasslands some dry, some thriving.  Standing atop them are cows with brown and black spots and horses prideful of their shining coats. All things that will soon pass, the ignorance of humanity detrimental to these small beacons of hope that stand in the forgotten, and imprudent city of Santiago de Chile.