Conferences

Every year 100.000 heavy storms and 10.000 floods take place. Thousands of landslides, more than 100 devastating earthquakes, hundreds of forest fires, hurricanes, cyclones, typhoons, tornados, volcanoes eruptions and droughts.

But only once, 37 years ago, a plane crashed in the Andes mountains, where thank God, a group of Uruguayan people survived to show that the way in which one human being loves another might be the toughest evidence, the highest testimony of ourselves, the finest piece for which .--quoting Rilke, the great Austrian poet-- all previous ones, are mere preparations.

This is how I managed to overcome the pain I felt while witnessing the death of my most beloved friends, probably the best among us: our focus on the will to survive. Survive by overcoming the starvation that made us feel prisoners in the vastness of the mountains. Survive our lack of appropriate physical responses. Survive the knowledge that the search had been cancelled ten days after the accident. Survive living together with death by our side and at our heels. Survive the terrible weather conditions… just with the support of our faith. That faith showed us a way to stay alive. Survive to find leadership, team spirit, solidarity, guiding us to make the toughest calls, come up with effective decisions involving life and death. Courage and boldness not to surrender, even under the worst imaginable conditions.

Flooded by fear, we had to be brave, as each of us depended on somebody else and each of us was, to a certain extent, responsible for the lives of others. Despite adversities, life remained the highest value known to us, and we grabbed at it in all possible ways. We were certain that we would not surrender without fighting for our lives, because almost everything else had been taken away from us, even the lives of our beloved ones, but under no circumstances could we afford to lose our faith.

There was a shield, a sort of intangible wall, which protected us, and made it possible for us to achieve our aim: to LIVE.

And that is just what the ones who once crashed into the Andes Mountains learned… that God was giving us an extra day to mourn our dead and rescue those still left Alive. That’s what we did almost forty years ago. We would do exactly the same under similar circumstances, as one of the highest challenges we had to go through was, just that, to continue living. And we managed by ourselves. Neither pain nor thirst and hunger, or even the terrible weather conditions or the immensity of the mountains forced us to surrender. Sensing that God knew we would use our arms to hug and caress, and that we would sow for the future, so that new generations would respect life -- the main essence of the human being, may have been the best attitude to face all troubles, including those feats which seem impossible to achieve, in terms of reason and logic.

Find your faith and mountains of snow will melt, as vast expanses of green moss are revealed before your amazed eyes, once again showing there is always a sign to make life’s presence felt.

In order stay faithful to the emotional charge that is essential to the nature of the conference, Carlitos only lectures in his native language (Spanish). Still he has addressed countless audiences using simultaneous translation, getting his message effectively across with the soulful charisma rendered by his passion for sharing the fruits of his ordeal.