friday and saturday and today

Some notes about Friday, in no particular order:

The Pinochet Foundation (not Institute) was very strange. It struck me that anyone who's involved in it must have a very powerful ability to not see things they don't want to see, because really the man was a monster. Also, our guide at one point brought up the point that under the "socialist" policies of the new government, 10 people are squeezing into tiny apartments. This utterly ignores the fact that during Pinochet's reign, the gap between rich and poor deepened profoundly and conditions for the poor were MUCH worse than they are today. More on the tiny apartment thing later, too. But of course Pinochet's supporters didn't know that because they're all loaded and live in Lo Barnechea and Vitacura. Our guide was a weird and angry man, very soft-spoken until Katie or Isa asked a semi-challenging question, at which point he raised his voice and opened his eyes really wide. There's a huge painting of Pinochet in the main room. The place itself is really deluxe, and in a very rich part of Santiago (I think Vitacura). And, finally, the man who signed the guest book right before us was none other than Senator John R. McCain, of Phoenix, AZ. Who sends all his best to the general. I shit you not. That kind of flipped me out, because the man was tortured, for crying out loud! I'll come back to torture (and tiny apartments) when I get to Villa Grimaldi.

The Cementerio General is beautiful and grand and very different from the one in Bs As. It's non-religious, for one thing. Much more spread out, a lot greater variety of size in terms of the monuments. Basically it looks a lot more haphazard, but just as beautiful in a different way. The monument to Allende and the one to the victims of the Pinochet regime are beautiful.

Villa Grimaldi was very heavy. It's the most famous center of torture in Chile, and now is a kind of museum and testament to the brutality of the Pinochet regime. The man who took us around had been there for two years, living, at one point, in a one-meter-square room with three other men, blindfolded almost 24/7, allowed to go to the bathroom once a day, electrocuted, used as an ashtray; of course got no medical treatment and was there for eight months out of the two years with his wife, whose room (the women all stayed together) was next to the torture house, so the women could hear the screams of men as they were tortured. God what the hell could drive people to act that way. I don't understand it, and it happened again in Abu Ghraib. This is why Bush is guilty there, because even thought Pinochet probably didn't actually go in himself and stab people with cattle prods, it was under his leadership that the place got created, and the same thing happened in Iraq, down the blindfolds and electrocution and forced standing. All the people who worked at Villa Grimaldi were trained at the School of the Americas (used to be in Panama, now in Miami) by our very own CIA and Defense Department. Sometimes my country disgusts me. About tiny apartments, it also strikes me as ludicrous that this smarmy man at the Pinochet Foundation could bitch about tiny apartments today when the man that he has decided to spend his whole life working for or on behalf of oversaw the creation of places where people lived six to a room in miniscule wooden boxes with no ventilation except the peephole in the door. Insane.

Yesterday, Rosie and I went with our Chile, chilenos class (with Kellyanne, too! She came with her friend Jenna, who's in the class) to Pomaire and then to the beach and then Isla Negra. It was a very pleasant trip, and I had gotten enough sleep that I was awake and ready for it. Pomaire was cool, we got to go into an artisan's workshop and watch him make a few things (amazing) and then I got to try it myself! It was incredibly hard, but very fun, and in the end I had a very ugly bowl. Didn't get to keep it, though. The beach was pretty, and we got to eat lunch on it, which was nice, even though the wind off the water made it a little chilly for some less-hardy people (Rosie...). Isla Negra was great the second time around, because the first time we went my comprehension was nowhere near what it is now, and so this time I could really focus on the house while still listening to the guide (who was great). Pablo Neruda was basically like a little kid, who grew up physically, found out he was really good at writing, made a lot of money at it and decided to realize all his little kid dreams. It's a wonderful place. I won't write anymore because I don't want to spoil any of it for MDLJ.

Then last night, I got some overpriced sushi from Benihana (but it was so good...) and then drank too much wine with everyone at Durham's apartment and fell asleep. Today I was hung over as crap and now I'm writing this and then I'm going to eat dinner and then I'm going to do some research and hopefully a little writing and then I'm going to go to bed. The first three days of this week are going to eat my alive. Then I'll be golden. Not sure if I'll be posting at all until Wednesday, so wish me luck with my two papers and test! 'Night.