I had been dreading going back to the beach ever since my mother nearly drowned in the sea last summer.

I didn’t know what to expect.

However, my encounter with the ocean at La Serena,  Chile was far from traumatic.

I have never experienced anything like it…

This powerful body of water has its own personality. It is unlike any other sea I have ever been at.

You feel this mighty presence all around you.

And just in case you forgot, La Serena has a system of tsunami alerts. You feel the ocean alive next to you. Like a giant lung, it breaths energy into the surrounding nature.

Is it a benign presence? How can this mesmerising beauty have the cruelty of producing the periodic tsunamis the people of La Serena are so afraid of?

I was pondering over this question in my hotel room before falling asleep, when an earthquake shook my bed.

Was that the answer? Is nature too powerful to subject itself to the laws of good and bad?

After all, the sea gave me back my mum. I should stop asking questions.

We all know what fairy tales can do for comfort. How about what they can do for women?

I met last week with Laura Albornoz, the Chilean Minister for Women’s Affairs.

Her National Service for Women (SERNAM) is doing a great job training girls from a young age to consider professions traditionally regarded as “unsuitable” for women. SERMAN has published a series of booklets of “alternative” fairy tales.

In “My friend from the blue planet”, a star tells the story of Cuca, a girl who wants to be an astronomer and goes on to become the first person on Earth to see a brown dwarf star. It is based on the life of Maria Teresa Ruiz, the first person to graduate as an astronomer from the University of Chile and the first woman to receive a PhD in astrophysics from Princeton University.

Chile, which elected its first female president in 2006, is doing great work to fight stereotypes against women.

It was wonderful to have the opportunity to discuss with Laura and with my fellow TIAW member Ingrid Antonijevic, Former Minister of the Economy of Chile, the role played by international women’s networks in telling the stories of successful members and converting these experiences into concrete advice and encouragement for other women.

Never before have I felt so pround to be a writer and a story teller…

Photo: thanks to Patricia Andrade (from left to right: Silvia, Laura and Ingrid)