Better late than never

            I’ve picked up a little bit of a cold the last few days, of course, right as the weather starts being consistently nice! But no matter how nice the weather may be, I know I’ve also been slacking on writing. Perhaps these sniffles are a hint for me to get busy on bloggin’. So let’s play catch-up.

My tiny bedroom BsAs

The first bit of news is that through many trials and tribulations I have finally managed to get a firm internet connection in my room, at a price (naturally). It took a lot of running around, pleading, yelling, foot stamping and cajoling – all in Spanish! – but I now have a working USB modem from my cell phone company, Personal, that I charge up with credit like a pay-as-you-go cell phone. What made it such a challenge, and necessitated all of that cajoling and running, was that the majority of Personal employees seem to know nothing much about the products and services they are selling apart from how much they cost. The chip in the modem is like a regular SIM card, but I can’t put credit on it like a normal SIM card (contrary to what I was told when I bought it) and I after I do put credit on it (which I cannot do over the phone, again contrary to what I was told by a salesperson), I must call the Personal customer service line in order to activate it (the most crucial step, which I was not told until I had been to the local branch office twice). I have come to think of this experience as The Great Internet Scavenger Hunt, and I think everyone plays it in some form any time they take up residence in another country. My family played it in Ireland (they also played a Phone Service Scavenger Hunt before I got there), I played it in Trier my first few weeks living in the Studentenwohnheim, and I have no doubt I will play it again at some later point when I am traveling and/or living abroad. It is one of my least favorite games, but it always broadens my vocabulary – never again will I forget the meaning of recargar (to recharge) or enchufar (to plug in). Plus I got some excellent listening practice ;)

Poster advertising the march on 24. March

My second bit of news has to do with Argentine history. This past Wednesday, March 24^th, marked the 34^th anniversary of the start of Argentina’s last military dictatorship, which ended in 1983. The military junta seized power after Isabel Peron’s government had failed to keep leftist guerrilla activity in the country under control. The military junta led a crack-down on leftists that resulted in the disappearance and kidnapping, torture and murder of as many as 30,000 people – known collectively as los desaparecidos, “the disappeared”. Exact numbers of how many people were disappeared are hard to come by, because the main players in this campaign of state-sponsored terror did not keep very good records). The nebulous figures mean that those in government during the “Dirty War” (Guerra Sucia), as it’s known, have continued to deny that such a large number of people were killed, and many maintain that the desaparecidos simply left the country because they were afraid they would be imprisoned.

Banner commemorating los desaparecidos

 After the first couple rounds of disappearances, families of the disappeared started asking questions and trying to get information on what happened to their family members. A few mothers began making more of a nuisance of themselves and eventually began regularly gathering in the Plaza de Mayo – traditionally a place of protest and demonstrations for porteños – and began demanding to know what had happened to their children. This was quite a gutsy move, especially considering a few of the mothers themselves were “disappeared” after marching – but the group continued, carrying pictures of their disappeared sons and daughters.

            I wish I could say there was a happy ending, but there’s not really. The military dictatorship fell apart after the disaster of the Falklands War but they made sure to pass a host of amnesty laws preventing anyone involved with the dictatorship from being brought to trial for what they did. The Madres continued to march and the group grew, marching weekly. A few of the Madres knew that their daughters or daughters-in-law had been pregnant at the time they were disappeared and set about trying to locate their grandchildren – the babies had been born in the detention centers and “adopted” by families with connections in the police or military. So far these Abuelas have managed to locate a handful of such children and at times have used the court system to reunite them with their surviving biological family members (two great movies about this are The Official Story and Cautiva, both in Spanish). Another bright spot is that former president Nestor Kirchner repealed the amnesty laws after taking office in the early 2000’s, allowing many of the torturers and murders to be brought to trial and held accountable for their actions.

The Madres marching in the Plaza de Mayo

            The Madres now march half an hour around the Plaza de Mayo every Thursday for remembrance and in support of other social causes. The day after the parades of March 24^th happened to be a Thursday, so a friend and I headed to the Plaza to experience this emotional event. Unlike most happenings in Argentina, it started right on time. A group of about 40-50 people assembled at the Plaza with large banners, a few carrying pictures or placards with the pictures and names of their children and the date they had disappeared. At first they walked in silence, a few times circling the Plaza. At the forefront were a handful of ancient-looking women wearing the recognizable white kerchiefs on their heads. After going around the Plaza once or twice, a group off to the side announced that they would be reading a selection of names from the 30,000 people who had disappeared. They started reading the names off, one by one, and after each name was called the group of marchers answered with “¡Presente!” (present or here).

            I feel like I still don’t have words to describe what it felt like to witness the Madres march. I was overwhelmed by the emotion of it and on the verge of tears throughout. I would compare it to visiting a former Nazi concentration camp: you know that you are witnessing the results of unimaginable human suffering. Additionally, I always feel chilled whenever I read anything about the Dirty War, because I have a feeling that had I grown up in Argentina at that time, my political views could very well have put me in the same circles as the disappeared. My writing skills are completely inadequate to express my emotions over those two days of marches and remembrance. I feel like nothing I can write about them would ever do justice to the suffering as well as the strength of these women (and men) who continue to march, continue to remember, and continue to fight for justice in the face of a government and a large part of society who would prefer to just “turn the page and move on” (to paraphrase one of the former Argentine presidents, Menem). It was a truly remarkable and unforgettable experience.