Chile sets the rules

Santiago, Chile

How I wish our Maker had given us three arms, or in my case had made me an octopus. I have insufficient hands to complete each task and there is always something undone unless I focus.

t was mid-day and I was standing in front of an elevator’s tightly closed polished metallic doors, on the head-spinning 38th floor of a 63-storey Santiago hotel. The doors were scratched and part dented, acting more as a fairground mirror. My body was stumpy, my face deformed, and the flesh of my hands appeared like clubs. Those doors, I thought, are in serious need of repair. They were not up to five-star standard. And anyway, the lift was taking ages to arrive.

The morning meeting had been tedious in the extreme. It had finished barely five minutes’ earlier and I had

already forgotten its content. What I had not forgotten was the pre-meeting brief, words that may be routine in Chile but way outside ordinary in England. The shirt-sleeved young security officer, curled black hair tousled, had spoken with confidence. Fire, bomb, hurricane, general death and destruction and how we might behave should they happen. But then came the big one, assured to keep our gathering of 20 professionals firmly on guard. The room fell utterly silent.

“In the event of an earthquake,” he said, “you run. Run for your very existence. No lifts, don’t muck about. Out that door and go for it.” He pointed casually behind him towards an escape door in the far corner, a sign displaying a tiny green man running for his life fixed to the wall beside it.

Run, I thought? From the 38th floor? Come on Mr Spaceman, pull the other. I looked each side of me. Good colleagues yes, but some of their figures had not tried running for a very long while. Most, and I included me, would not have made it beyond floor 37, let alone hotel reception, fresh air and safety.

Chile, you see, forms part of the volcanic Ring of Fire, a zone responsible for 90% of the planet’s earthquakes. The Ring of Fire may be a tourist destination, at least some of it, but is not always a good place to be. There had been nine earthquakes in the seven days before my arrival and Santiago was in no way exempt. Some of the largest earthquakes in history have taken place in the immediate vicinity of the capital. In 1960, 5000 died and two million were made homeless. Chile has up to 700 tremors annually, with the big one never distant.

Warning delivered, the meeting began, topics droned by but I could sense no one was listening. Each sat poised, waiting for the shake or sway or jolt. Waiting to dash towards the little green man and out, en route to safety. “Don’t look up as you run,” the guard had added as an afterthought. “You’ll not like what you see.”

But somehow, we were spared. Nature had granted another day of existence. Meeting over, little concluded, it was time to head for my room, 16 floors below. Nodding farewell to my colleagues, agreeing to meet later, I took the few steps into the elevator lobby and pressed the button marked ‘Descend’. I was heavily laden. Tablet computer squeezed tight by my left armpit, mobile telephone in the palm of my right hand, key and lift cards between right forefinger and thumb, briefcase in my left hand, and glasses, those never-forget items, deeply within my right-hand trouser pocket.

And then I waited, and waited, and waited. It would have been quicker to read the Bible. A small red light above the lift doors flashed any number between zero and 63, except the one I wanted, number 38. I was playing elevator roulette and losing handsomely. My mind wandered, my attention drifted, as I started to think of this, and that and the other. I was almost asleep standing, like elephants, zebras and flamingos.

“Ping!”

I jerked, almost guiltily for letting my mind and imagination wander. The lift had arrived, as if without invitation.

It was when its doors opened my trouble began, as I took that first step towards the space beyond. The empty lift, its mirrored walls and me, laden with the trappings of a completed business meeting.

Another sound had added itself to the lift’s arrival, as my mobile telephone burst into life.

My ringtone is embarrassing and something I promise to change. The quacking duck. Why did I choose the quacker? All it does is make folk stare, not that there was anyone nearby to show interest. Just me, my technology and a lift.

I began to scrabble. Stepping into an empty lift was not the problem, as its doors slid open automatically, but finding the correct button for my floor was a challenge to beat all challenges. Once, I could see everything, irrespective of distance. Once, my physiology granted me so much more. But now I need glasses for anything nearby and certainly for elevator buttons. But my hands were full, mobile right, briefcase left, while the duck was quacking incessantly.

I hesitated, pondered, sweated, thought. How the Hell could I press the correct button? I could not make out the numbers on them anyway. So, my acrobatics started, like some primitive totem dance, albeit in the wrong country. Okay, I thought, let’s try this.  Take my left arm…good…keep hold of the briefcase…slowly…keep my armpit tight so the tablet does not fall…good…steady…almost there… reach across with the fingers of my left hand into my right-hand trouser pocket to find my glasses and…dammit…that was not going to work.

I thought fast. There had to be a better way. Come on! The lift doors were closing, I was just inside and had yet to press the button for my floor and I definitely needed my glasses. There was only one thing left. I dropped everything with a clatter, briefcase, tablet, telephone, cards, in an untidy mess on the floor. Items skidded everywhere. The tablet did a somersault, coming to rest in the opposite corner, the briefcase sprung open while key and lift cards ended up by my feet.

“Ping!” Jesus, now someone higher up had summoned the lift. I could see the red number above the button panel flash 47. Going up? That was the last place I needed to head.

Glasses, glasses. This had all started with glasses. Where were the bloody things? Once more, I reached towards my trouser pocket, this time it was easier with my right hand. Dammit again! I had placed the glasses in a security pocket, one of those pockets within a pocket within a pocket. The thing needed unzipping, a real test of manual dexterity. Another fumble, another scrabble and then triumph. With a flourish, I retrieved the glasses. Well not the glasses, but the glasses case. I still had to extract the specs, unfold them, and place them on my nose.

Fumbling the glasses into place, my possessions still scattered on the floor, I reached towards my now-in-focus button, number 22. My right forefinger came closer, closer, almost touching…

“Can I help you?” said the voice. I glanced up but with reading glasses now on I could not focus on distance. Anything more than ten centimetres was a non-starter. Trying to look casual, I took off the glasses, stuffing one temple tip between my lips to keep the specs from harm and looked closely at my new companion. He was tall, besuited, silk cream tie, roughly mid-thirties, dark hair slicked back, as a well-to-do Chilean professional.

“Umm…umm,” I replied.

“Which floor?” he asked.

“Umm…umm,” I repeated. It is difficult to speak with a mouthful of spectacle.

The man leaned towards me and reached out. “Here,” he said, true kindness in his voice. “Let me have a look at your key card. And wow, you’ve got all this stuff on the floor. You OK?”

Umm…umm,” I said. With a flourish, I pulled the temple tip from my mouth and gasped, “Floor twen…”

“I see,” the man interrupted, looking at the key card, “floor 22. There we are.”

With the accuracy of a sniper, and without the aid of glasses, the new arrival jabbed button 22. “That’s the one,” he added. “Now let me clear this up.” Within moments the lift doors closed, my debris of disaster was tidied and placed securely back in my hands.

I felt tiny. I am supposedly an independent traveller, definitely an ex-soldier. I can supposedly handle anything aimed at me but was now being aided by a Chilean passer-by. Me the old codger, him the young thruster. I muttered, “Thank you” and held my gaze to the floor. What else can you do when you feel microbial?

But that is Chile, you see. It is like that. Young help old and old help the older. The extended family is critical. Children can live with cousins, uncles, aunts and parents, well into adult life.

Chile has challenged society, too. It once undertook a survey to see how gender stereotypes might have changed. The country was well ahead of the game. It graduated Latin America’s first female lawyers and physicians in the 1880s and now, roughly 40% of doctors are women, as are over 50% of the nation’s judges.

Chile is ahead by a long way and yet somehow still preserves the family. But what else can you expect of a land whose name was derived from a tribal word meaning, “the land where the earth ends”? Being at the end of the Earth has its advantages. You can set your own rules, as Chile has for generations.