Pensando

These past few days have been an emotional roller coaster to say the least. I’ll start with the good. Yesterday we went to a winery in Paine. We had a delicious three course lunch and got a tour of the winery. Both the appetizers before the meal and the meal came with multiple glasses of wine, so it’s safe to say that everyone (including our Tufts professor chaperone) had a very good time. The bus ride back became a giant sing-a-long (myself and a few others not included). Then we hunted for a restaurant that would be open. They were few and far between because yesterday was a catholic holiday, and Chile is very, very catholic. A small group of us finally found one and we had a very nice, inexpensive time. Then everyone turned in early because we had to be out of our hostel at 8:15, not an easy feat for 20 college students.

Now onto the not so good, or rather, the harder to take. Yesterday morning we visited a memorial to Los Desaparecidos in Paine, which is the town in Chile most affected by the coup, percentage wise. They’ve constructed an incredible memorial to the 70+ friends and family members who were taken by the military during the Pinochet government. We met the man who was in charge of the monument, and whose father was one of the disappeared. We also met a girl who represented the third generation of community members affected by the coup. Her grandfather was taken and now she works with the memorial.

Today we met a man who runs the abroad program in Chile for an American university, but who’s Chilean. He spent about an hour describing in pretty excruciating detail the torture and humiliation tactics that the Chilean military used in Villa Grimaldi. Villa Grimaldi was the primary torture camp constructed by the Pinochet administration, and it was built at the base of the foothills right outside Santiago. After the man described all of the horrible events that took place there, he told us a little about his own life. He was a prisoner at Villa Grimaldi, and two other torture camps, for 11 months. He explained how he experienced everything he’d taught us about and added a few very chilling personal anecdotes. With him, we then toured what remains of the Villa. Most of the buildings and structures in all the torture camps have been destroyed, but at Villa Grimaldi a few basic structures remain. The rest has become a park and memorial for Los Desaparecidos. It was scary, horrible, sad, and moving to walk through the area with someone who’d been there before as a prisoner experiencing indescribable torture. There were more than a few moments when our guide had to stop talking because he got so emotional recounting everything that had happened to him and his contemporaries. And there were many, many times I cried. There were too many things talked about and described to detail all of them here, but one story in particular summarizes what I think is the incredible balance Chileans have struck between remembering the atrocity and moving past it to create new lives. A few years ago, someone asked permission to be married at Villa Grimaldi. After shock and horror from many community members, the man explained himself. He is the son of a disappeared man and said that at his wedding, on the most important day of his life, he wanted his father to be present. I think it’s amazing that he could recognize the horror that occurred, and the terrible loss of his father, while simultaneously moving forward and creating something beautiful.

After Villa Grimaldi, we went with our guide to the cemetery in Santiago. There we saw many graves, but what I found most moving was the tomb of Salvador Allende. After the Pinochet dictatorship, the first newly democratically elected Chilean congress financed the erection of a tomb for the Allende family. His remains were moved from were they were unceremoniously hid by the Pinochet administration and placed in the center of the richest part of the Santiago cemetery. The cemetery, like the city it serves, is clearly broken down by class. Our tour guide, amidst tears, explained to us that Salvador Allende himself would never have imagined that he would be buried amongst the city’s most upper crust elite. It’s truly a testament to the immense love so many people here still feel for this incredible man. We then travelled to the poorer part of the cemetery and there got to see Victor Jara’s grave. For those who don’t know, Jara was a very famous communist folk singer in Chile. He was one of the first taken by the military after the coup, and was brutally mutilated and executed in the national Chilean soccer stadium. Today, the stadium has been renamed to honor the man who remains a legend and role model in this country.

I’ve done a lot of thinking about the dictatorship, the torture, Los Desaparecidos, and the generations that remain over the last few days. Amidst all of the sadness and horror I’ve felt when thinking about those topics directly, I’ve also been reflecting a lot about how I personally connect to all of these atrocities. As I’ve said before, I realize that if my family had lived in Chile at that time, there’s a very good chance I would have lost lots of people that I love because they stood up for what they believe in. When we met the girl at the Paine memorial who represents the third generation affected by the dictatorship, I realized that could easily have been me. Many of my relatives were persecuted or otherwise faced resistance because they were fighting for something that wasn’t the political or social norm. Standing among the memorials to the various people who died in Paine, and walking the same path that so many prisoners walked before at Villa Grimaldi, I was proud that my family has something in common with those people. They were (and are) activists and fought (and fight) for what they believe in.

I also thought about what I, in my own personal everyday life, have in common with those who disappeared. And I realized, it’s not a lot. Many, many people who were taken and murdered during the Pinochet government were right around my age. They were all involved in political activities and social movements that caused people to take notice of their beliefs. They died for causes they believe in. I haven’t yet participated in, or felt that passionately about, any activity like that. I spent so much of my time growing up in Berkeley thinking about what I disagreed with that I didn’t spend a lot of time getting involved with things I really believe in. I think it’s unfortunate, to say the least, that I’ve been presented with opportunities to get involved and haven’t taken them. Walking around these places full of the spirits of passionate people my age makes me reevaluate how passionate I am myself. Especially coming from such a long line, on both sides, of people who treasure expressing their passion. I really want to take these next 5 months, while I’m in such a passionate place, to find my own personal passions and act on them. I learned so much from the memorials of the past few days that I can’t adequately summarize everything; but if I had to point to one thing specifically, I would say I’ve really seen how important it is to take a stand. I owe both the disappeared and my own family an immense debt because they’ve made me really look at myself and at this new culture I’m now living in. I want so badly to be able to adequately honor those who are no longer with us, and show those who are that their messages and causes are still going strong.