Every morning at 7, Maria Teresa Argüelles, an unassuming kindergarten teacher, arises and applies sunburn cream and then reminds her 11-year-old son Daniel to put on his hat and lotion. She has bought Daniel sunglasses but is afraid to let him take them to school because they are expensive and she fears he will break them. And like many kids, he often just shoves his hat in his bookbag. "I think the problem is that people in general aren't conscious of the sun's effects," she says.

Argüelles points upward with her index finger and explains that the sky looks no different than when she was a child. But it certainly feels different. "It now stings my skin," she says as she touches her cheeks with both hands and scrunches up her face.

She worries, too, about her students. They come in with rosy cheeks after outdoor playtime -- one child recently burned himself severely and had to stay out of school for several days. And her husband Jorge Asencio, a security guard for a 7-Up factory who works outside for much of the day, comes home complaining of headaches when the sun's been particularly bright.

Two weeks ago, he came home complaining about vision problems. "I think it's because of the sun," she says about his right eye, which is completely bloodshot. Asencio says he has problems seeing up close, but he can't afford to go to the doctor until the end of the month, when he gets paid.

"These people are not accustomed to much radiation and suddenly, they are getting more," says Dr. Juan Honeyman, head of the department of dermatology at Santiago's University of Chile Medical School. "The problem is, with the switch, people can get burned -- the acute effect of UVB radiation."

While there have been noticeable health changes in the people of Punta Arenas, as Honeyman has documented in new research, the effects haven't been as severe as might have been expected. He compared two studies, one from 1992 and one last year, that examined the health of similar groups of people -- middle-aged hospital employees and outdoor workers like farmers and fishermen. Honeyman found a 28 percent increase in cheilitis (fissures and cracks around the mouth); a 16.4 increase in conditions like solar spots (small patches of sunburn); and a 3.6 percent increase in benign skin conditions like facial hyperpigmentation (a darkening of the skin), herpes simplex type 1 and photoaging (a premature aging and wrinkling of the skin).

Only a few days after I left Punta Arenas, I felt the first tingle of a cold sore forming in the right-hand corner on my upper lip. Was this because I forgot to put on my SPF lip balm after the first day? Despite my hyperawareness of the issue -- the whole reason I came was to learn about the ozone hole's effects -- I behaved no differently than most of the people who live here.

On the first day, I bundled up completely and looked as if I'd been dressed by an overprotective mom, with a baseball cap pulled down to shade my face, sunglasses, lip balm and sun cream. But gradually I shed my concern and went about my business as if nothing was amiss -- even though I knew everything was. I stopped using my hat because the face-slapping wind kept blowing it off, and I tired of constantly transferring my sunglasses between my eyes and my purse.

While I saw some people completely bedecked in protective clothing, Honeyman confirms the sense I got walking around the streets that few bother. According to his most recent study, 64 percent of people have never used sunburn lotion to protect themselves despite official warnings, and 41 percent have never worn sunglasses in their entire lives. But he stresses that he found no significant change in rates of skin cancer or pre-malignant cancer. According to the local health minister Amarales, the incidence rate of skin cancer is 6.3 per 100,000 people, although she has no figures for the rate 10 years ago. Only recently were doctors required to start reporting cases of skin cancer the way they report cases of infectious disease.

Many of the officials here make it sound like it will be a simple task to convince people to suddenly change their daily habits. Amarales seems naive, and a little flippant, as he talks about how easy it is to remain in the shadows of trees or tall buildings on high radiation days, even though it's freezing here and even colder in the shade. After a few days in Punta Arenas, I found myself crossing the street to walk in the sun's path and bask a little in the warmth -- and I was highly motivated not to, and knew I was leaving soon.