The end of June was my last trip to Santiago for the month. I enjoy the long layover. I was able to take Ladyfriend along on the first trip and she got business class both directions (but she got stuck next to a 100 year old Chilean non-rev who didn't know how to use the fancy seat or tablet so we nicknamed her Abuela). It's winter there so it's great to just catch up or sleep or relax if you want to. There are literally an endless list of options.
I discovered a great Peruvian Restaurant called Peru Gustoso that is simply amazing (although I learned that Peruvian restaurants in Chile are like Mexican restaurants here or Indian restaurants in England....they are obsessed with Peruvian food like we are with Mexican food and the Brits are with Indian food) and got to enjoy my favorite Peruvian soda (Inca Kola).
This last trip we arrived on a Monday, which happened to be a holiday for St. Peter or Paul, we could never figure it out. As a result lots of places were closed so we didn't have much in the way of eating options that first day. But we are Flight Attendants after all, the Macgyvers of the skies, and we can turn anything into a party. My coworker Rockland always travels with fake candles and a Tahitian table cloth, so when we arrived at the crew room, it was decorated and ready for fun.
Since everything was closed, we ended up at an Ex-Pat bar popular with the pilots called California Bar. It's run by two young people from California, and features mostly an American menu, but when that is all that is open, you do what you have to do. The food ended up being pretty good and we were all happy with our selections. We were also entertained with some soccer fans who were happy that their team had won a rather important match. I imagine they had headaches the next day....
Of course we ended the night with some shots, which I haven't done in I don't know how long, but it was fun... they had rather explicit names, so the only one I can tell you about is the one my co-worker Velvet had called the Flaming Dr. Pepper.
The next day we woke up to a beautiful Chilean winter day. Not a cloud in the sky and the smog was not even that bad, as you could see the Andes mountains!
I went with my friends Mari-Carmen and Ann to the Museo de la Memoria, or Museum of Memories. It was dedicated the the Human Rights struggle in Chile from 1973 to 1990 when the country was ruled by a military dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet. The museum opened in 2010 and was closed briefly following the earthquake last year. The first stone in the building was laid by Michelle Bachelet, who was president at the time it opened, and was also a victim of torture under the Pinochet regime.
The entry into the building has an exhibit about Human Rights and how it's a universal challenge to make sure they are upheld. After heading upstairs, you are given a step by step retelling of the Chilean story. Socialist President Salvador Allende was overthrown on September 11th, 1973. A timeline along the wall show that in a matter of 12 hours, the military had cut off communications, killed Allende, and installed themselves as rulers of the country.
Photography was not permitted inside the building, but I did snap a quick shot of the main room. The thousands of pictures on the wall are the "deseparecidos" or disappeared, the Chileans who were detained by the government and never heard from again.
Over the course of the 17 year dictatorship, over 35,000 people were subject to Human Rights violations including 28,000 victims of torture, 3,000 executions, and 1,300 who simply disappeared and were presumed to have been killed by the military regime. Additionally, over 200,000 left the county in exile to avoid detention. A sad part of Chilean history. Ann, Mari-Carmen and I left the museum feeling sad and deflated. It was an emotionally powerful exhibit and you can't help but walk away feeling drained.
For me, the most moving part of the exhibit was the story dedicated to the "arpilleras". The Catholic Church in Chile funded the creating of these handmade handkerchiefs which Chilean woman used as a form of artwork and self-expression allowing them to create images that questioned the Pinochet regime and called out the human rights struggle. It was really their only form of self-expression. A special dance even took shape, where the female would dance her part minus her male partner to symbolize his disappearance. It was given worldwide acclaim after Sting wrote a song called "They Dance Alone". When I was a junior in college, I took a class called "People of the Southern Cone" and I remember studying the Human Rights issue in Chile and reading about this Arpillera movement. To be able to see actual examples at the exhibit after having studied the issue was very special for me.
The plaza outside the museum has seahorse iron grates that serve as drains. We learned inside, that for many of the detained, life was spent in the dark or blindfolded for most of the day. The only time they were permitted to see was when they went to the bathroom or bathed, and the drains all had seahorses in the grating. Since that was the only thing they saw every day, it became a symbol for those who were in detention to carry on and try to survive.
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