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In the violet light of a February Sunday afternoon, Padre Nelson Barrientos led his flock along the road that winds up Chile’s Huasco River Valley. The congregation of Our Lady of Lourdes of Conay was conveying a new statue of the Blessed Virgin to its home in the parish church, nestled in the shadow of the Andes. A half-dozen young people in traditional indigenous costumes—feathers, beads—drummed and danced, and their parents and neighbours followed in the procession. The mayor, Carmen Bou, was there, walking arm-in-arm at the front with Alicia Páez Campillay, the wife of the man whom everyone calls the valley’s richest businessman.
Many of the other marchers wore jeans and work shirts that hinted at a life spent in vineyards and orchards. Making their way to the village, the mayor, the dancers, their parents and the priest scrabbled up the loose gravel of the hillside, past a road sign almost swallowed by shrubbery, pointing up the mountain. On it, faintly visible despite someone’s best efforts with a can of spray paint, were the words “Pascua Lama.”
The Virgin was installed in the tiny blue chapel. There was dancing, poems, and an offering of the valley’s fat green grapes. As dusk fell, the white-haired priest tugged off a sweaty cassock; he, too, wore a plaid shirt and jeans.
