It is Day 10, and I still have yet to figure out proper time management in the mornings. My hair is soaking from my cold shower and my makeup isn’t quite done, but I scramble onto the bus, peanut butter banana toast in one hand and backpack clumsily slung over my shoulder. I’ve gained a reputation for scarfing down my breakfast and shakily applying mascara on our morning bus rides. I sit with Sedona, another regular bus breakfast-eater, and we stare out the window into the cloudy Iquique sky, wondering if our promised sunny beach afternoon will come to fruition.
We are heading to Chanavayita, a little beach-side town 45 minutes south of Iquique. Once there, we will visit a posta—a small public-system healthcare service provider. Our professor has praised the famous beaches there and told us to bring swimsuits, but although we are in the driest desert in the world, it is still winter in Chile, and the clouds are unmoved by our beach day.
Chanavayita is less sand than dirt, and more dirt than road. A small island of colorful houses amongst the never-ending sand along the Pacific. We park the bus and explore a nearby playground, a metal jungle; we swing high, as if calling to the sun to come out. Walking down the road toward the water, we are met by hills of gravelly sand overlooking orange and blue motorboats.
The posta is even smaller than we expected: a blue, one-story building with two rooms, and one doctor for 1,500 Chanavayitans. Our group takes turns going into the posta, as we can’t all fit inside. A golden dog walks through the front door, which was left wide open. In the waiting room, the handful of patients are unmoved by the old lab—a stark contrast to our group which so often gets sidetracked by strays. Our amusement is amusing to the patients; in Chile, there is nothing more normal than a stray dog.
DO NOT PET THE DOGS. An unending sea of dog-related warnings float around in my head.
In Chanavayita, there seem to be more dogs than people. We walk around between the posta visit and lunch, exploring the quaint beach town. Straying off in smaller groups, we wander in different directions. A breeze flows through the town, continuing even as the sun gets brighter.
We walk by vacant hostels, and I wonder if they might be less empty in summer. I hope so. A rare car drives by on the dirt road between desolate hostels and quiet neighborhood markets. I wonder: where are all of the people? A pack of dogs of all shapes and colors skip by.
A left turn leads us to the ocean, and a radiant garden overlooking the water lures us over. It’s rare to see such an abundance of plant life in the Atacama. With each step toward the garden, the outline of the house underneath the plants becomes clearer. Standing alone by the water, the house has no neighbors, though at least twenty dogs roam around the house.
Maintaining some distance from the fence-less home, we get closer and observe a woman outside, tending to her plants and unmoved by our presence. The garden is even more captivating up close: a mixture of sun-bleached wood and metal sheets and cloth of different colors make up the home, surrounded by deep green leaves and red flowers.
A windchime dances in the background as the ongoing breeze blows harder, blowing the sheets up. Our professor talks with the woman of the home, as the random assortment of dogs rush toward a small group of us, curious and excited.
There is no rhyme or reason to the dogs: small-sized curly white-haired, medium-sized golden short-furred, one looks like a dingo, one looks like my dog back home. Out of nowhere we are swarmed by at least seven black mutt puppies.
The colors of their coats are dull—they are all covered in dirt and sand. Dogs circle around us, sniffing our foreign bodies, tumbling in the dirt, playing with each other. A few of the puppies go to get milk from their mother. She barks angrily and lunges around at them, revealing a massive bloody gash on her stomach, spanning over her nipples.
I work hard to restrain myself from petting the puppies, despite all of the warnings I received. Still, in my excitement, I can’t help but let them get close.
Minutes of dog admiring pass by, and I start to walk past the house, toward the ocean. An amber-colored cat and some chickens in a pen watch vigilantly as I slowly make my way. Off to the left, a curious energy lures me over. Behind the home, a mystifying sight awaits me: a foliage-filled wheelbarrow, tin cans holding red flowers, and dozens of wooden crosses, painted white, buried in the dirt.
Leaving the chaos of the dogs behind me, it is just the ocean, the graveyard, myself, and the breeze moving through us. In the presence of the sublime oceanside cemetery, my body feels transformed.
A serene wave washes over me, as if the setting necessitates it. Simultaneously, I feel exhilarated. In this graveyard, time seems to stand still. Clarity and confusion radiate and intermingle throughout my bloodstream. Questions regarding my experience in Chile and my future flood my brain, but with them, the assurance that I will figure it out. I am okay. I will be okay.
Eventually I am dragged away; we are having lunch soon. Later I learn that another student was bitten by one of the garden dogs and will need immediate rabies treatment. I also learn that the graveyard behind the home was a dog cemetery maintained by the woman at the garden home. Through their lives and deaths, she cares for the dogs of Chanavayita. We stop to collect seashells and then board the bus back to Iquique.
There are few decisions I can so unequivocally stand by, such as I can with my decision to go to Chile. My time there is forever ingrained in my body, and I consciously hold tightly to the visceral experiences I had there.
Close to halfway through our time in Chile, we went to Chanavayita, and our time in the small beach-side town remains one of my most vivid memories. I created the painting below as a physical reminder to take along wherever I go.
Ivanna is a recent graduate of the Public Health Major at UW and studied abroad in Chile during Summer 2018. Her interests include public health research relating to the built environment and social determinants of health. Since coming back from Chile, much of her time has been spent trying to figure out how to go back. On any given day, you can probably find her overthinking, or at @ivannadeanda.
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