"This conversation takes me back," he stated, and then in his less-than-perfect English, he recounted the following:
It was December 15, 1973 and my brother had invited me over for dinner. Before long the military patrol was at our doorstep arresting my brother and me. They took us to the stadium where I was held until December 23. My brother, however, was imprisoned for eleven months. He was ironically moved to my mother's hometown in a city up north near Antofagasta. They eventually had to let him go because they couldn't prove his allegiance to the government.Before moving to Chile, my Lonely Planet book had enlightened me to the tumultuous past of this country. Even still, history has never been my forte and I would have never guessed the number of times the topic would come up in conversation. One of my co-workers in Santiago had recently moved back to Chile after his family was exiled during the rule of Pinochet. He grew up in Australia, which was one of a handful of countries that welcomed Chileans with open arms during the dictatorship.
I recalled another co-worker's mention of this time as I lay on my stomach soaking up ultraviolet rays at the beach today. The front cover of my recently purchased copy of El plan infinito lay open in front of me. As I gazed upon the photo of Isabel Allende, I remembered Chris, my co-worker, describing the many times he and his cousin Isabel would go to the beach together in Venezuela. "She had an ass this big," he commented as he reached his hands out to the side, "and she would wear a thong this big," he showed me with his fingers. The reason the two Chilean natives were in Venezuela was indeed because of the military dictatorship.
Raul continued his story with further background information:
The leftist party had the radical idea of dissolving the economy. They increased our salaries dramatically and I was suddenly able to afford anything I wanted. My brother and I were university students at the time and I remember lines growing long everywhere you went to purchase something.
Of course, the wealthy were displeased with the changes and this led to the formation of the coup who proceeded to overthrow the government September 11, 1973. Anyone with suspected allegiance to the socialist party was at great risk. My brother was a leader at our university and it was a mere three months after September 11 that they found us.It's events such as these that grant me a bit more understanding as to why this culture is so pillo (takes advantage of any lack of attentiveness).
