San Franciscans in Santiago: First Writing Since

contributed by Erika...

It has been a dizzying couple of months since the start of 2015. I began attending language school every weekday and started meeting twice a week informally with a new Chilean friend, Javier, to practice; Reuben started (and graduated from) summer classes in band conducting at the university; we had two visitors come stay with us -- our friend Joyce from New York and our friend Dan from Berkeley; and Reuben made a trip to Argentina as part of a small research tour focused on Latin American Jewish music.

Most significantly, though, I made a last-minute trip to California in January to see my father before he died. He passed away on February 2nd after a year-long battle with brain cancer. To those of you who wrote to me on email or Facebook or by mail, I am so grateful for your words of comfort and support. Truth is that the experiences of having time with my father after more than 20 years of being estranged and then of his death were incredibly disorienting and overwhelming, and I have been very much up and down since I last wrote. It has been both a blessing and a challenge to be away from home at this hard, confusing time. I have been grateful for the space, the lack of expectations, and the ability to "check out" from my life when I need to -- all privileges I have here in Santiago. At the same time, I have been deeply missing the ability to call and see people I trust, to host shiva surrounded by those I love, and to say kaddish in my community at CSZ. It's been very hard for me to recognize my own grieving being so far away. I know that I will have more to do when I get home - such as grieving goes.

While our friend Dan was here, though, the three of us spent an entire day at Museo de La Memoria y Los Derechos Humanos. The museum is a very powerful chronicle of the years of the Pinochet dictatorship, with nearly an entire floor dedicated to the day of the military coup in 1973 and three additional floors filled with stories, testimonies, sounds, news, and art from those who were imprisoned, murdered, disappeared, and/or led the resistance between 1973 and 1990. It's been a mere 25 years since Pinochet, and even being here for such a short time, it feels clear to me that the wound and the trauma are still very fresh. The museum itself, which opened in 2010, gives visitors a sense of a first big step forward for the Chilean people in voicing their experiences to the world -- and to each other. Nearly half the country (more than 40 percent) voted in favor of the military government in the election that ousted the dictatorship, and in my conversations with people here, I get the sense that it has been too painful - and too scary - to talk about all of the pain and loss in the midst of that internal division.

In this moment, however, it seems like that feeling is beginning to shift, and more conversation is happening. And yet, school children are not learning any details about the dictatorship and, as far as I can tell, students are not yet making field trips to La Memoria. In fact, when we discussed the museum in my Spanish class, my teacher, a Chilean lefty about 10 years my senior and daughter of two university professors, insisted that only tourists go there to visit. "Chileans, for the most part, don't want to remember," she said (in Spanish, of course).

From what I have pieced together in my short time here, the trauma and loss suffered by the people, and by the culture, have been acknowledged, but mostly in whispers. I see evidence of the weight of those years of dictatorship in the introversion and hesitancy of the people - especially when it comes to visitors. There is a certain indecisiveness and ambiguity about identity that exists among people here. Memory, discussion of politics and incorporation of recent history seem like they are just now beginning to emerge, but the process is not a linear one. On the one hand, Chileans (in Santiago at least) are quick to make noise about local issues - a bad landlord, problems with public transportation, the education system, some environmental issues. On the other hand, I sense a rush to amnesia around Pinochet, and a desire to forget, deny, minimize the impact of the the military rule that happened not too long ago. The elephant in the room. In its place - at least in Santiago - there is a busyness, things to do and to buy, ways to distract and a lot of American music and heavy drinking. People seem quick to insist that the democratic tradition is strong here and that those long, horrible years are just a blip in an otherwise progressive, successful history. But I have also sensed a kind of lost feeling - the kind that comes with grief and mourning - as if the people, as a people not necessarily as individuals, are wandering, unmoored, unclear where they stand and where they want to go.

Personally, it feels somehow right to be mourning my father in a country that is still very much grieving the atrocities of the dictatorship that reigned with fear and violence for so long. I am learning a lot about grief and healing from being here – both what to do and what not to do. If you had asked me even 6 months ago how I was doing with my father's imminent death, I would have answered that I had grieved the loss of my father twenty years ago when we stopped talking. When I walked back into his house after all those years, however, it became clear to me how much I had not been willing to - could not - take in the impact of the trauma I experienced as a teen (no doubt also the reason I had a terrible, sleepless few days while deciding whether or not to try to see him before he died). Grief is not linear - I keep reminding myself of that. Now that he is gone (and, truthfully, now that I have many more resources), I am uncovering, experiencing and moving through new layers of rage, release, despair and gratitude - although on most days, I feel mute in the face of it all. Grief is not linear.

So I am spending a lot of time outside and walking, making friends with random street dogs in need of and quick to share love, leaning on Reuben a lot and pushing myself to go to yoga even when I want to crawl under the covers. And I am continuing to learn from the people here - how to be patient with repair and healing, how to emerge from shock and face what you fear could have killed you, and how to begin to create beauty and hope from the darkest parts of your own history. And, of course, how long it all takes.

We have so many more stories to share - including those about our trips to all three of Neruda's houses and to a Sephardi Purim celebration in Valparaiso. But I think I'll end this post here. I am recommitting to blogging, though - I promise. Below are some pictures from our recent travels to the Andes and to the sea. Enjoy, and look for more stories about our adventures and experiences soon.

Thanks for listening.

Many blessings,
ek