Saturday--February 19--Santiago

Saturday--February 19--Santiago

Jenny and Bernadetta both told me there was a coffee place just around the corner from the apartment.  I’d seen several coffee places on the next street but when I asked what time they opened in the morning one said 9 and the other said 8.  O.k. I’ll go try to find something open for coffee.  I’d bought a few things for breakfast but not coffee because I didn’t want to buy a whole jar of coffee for one day.

Well it was about 9:00 a.m. and when I got to the street there was only one place open.  I had a latte and a croissant but it was a sweet croissant.  I don’t really like sweet things in the morning.  

Juxtaposition 

On the schedule for today was to go to Plaza del Armas which has a few museums, have lunch at the fish market and then to the Memory Museum (La Memoria y Los Derechos Humanos).

The Plaza del Armas was only 4 blocks from the apartment and it wasn’t too hot yet.  There weren’t too many people on the street and it was already 10:00 a.m.  I think it’s because one, people stay up very late here, two, it’s summer and many Santiagan’s are out of town and lastly it’s Saturday.  I don’t know.

In the Plaza del Armas

I arrive at the Plaza del Armas which is a big square surrounded by large buildings.  Two are museums: Museo Historico Nacional (National History Museum) and the Postal Museum.  Then there is the Metropolitan Cathedral of Santiago.  What I appreciated was the juxtaposition between the old buildings and the glass modern buildings very close by.  In the square there are many artists and vendors as well as several men wearing suits, shouting about something.  I asked a tourist information guy what all the shouting was about and he told me they are talking about Jesus.  

I visited the Museo Historico Nacional which contains many things about the history of Chile since their independence from Spain on September 18, 1810.  Everything was in Spanish so I was only able to understand maybe 50%, but enough to know who the important people.  There was information about the important people and photos of life from the 1800’s.  I was very impressed with the beautiful penmanship of Jose Miguel Carrera’s diary. I enjoyed the photos of students from early schools, especially the one of students in uniform having physical education class (outside).

outside the mercado

My next stop was to the central mercado and fish market for lunch.  I’d asked the man at the tourist information for a restaurant suggestion and he told me I should eat at El Galeon, then gave me a 5% discount coupon.  I knew this was going to be a tourist trap.  The mercado was only a few blocks away from the Plaza.  

lunch

El Galeon was the first restaurant on the outside of the market and they had hawkers outside trying to herd in the tourists.  I decided to try it and was not disappointed, other than it was a bit overpriced.  The restaurant was very busy and filled with many tourists, mostly speaking Spanish.  The food was excellent.  I had sea bass that was in a light sauce topped with shrimps and mushrooms.  It was a very large portion and no way I could finish it all.  I would have liked to have taken the rest with me for later but it was too hot to carry fish around all day.

Suddenly a camera crew appeared in the restaurant filming two and went upstairs.  When the crew came back down I saw a woman with a microphone in her hand interviewing two guitar players.  I asked the waiter what was going on.  He told me that the film crew and the woman interviewer were from a popular T.V. show in Santiago and they were filming these musicians and the restaurant to show what was going on in Santiago for people who were in Chile for the International Song Festival in Vina Del Mar.

Nice to be where the action is.

sea urchin

After lunch I walked around inside the extremely lively fish market and saw so many other restaurants and lots of fish stands.  There was lots of people buying fish.  

There were so many different types to choose from.  I’m sure the locals eat at the restaurant inside.  But I wasn’t complaining about my choice.

for my cat loving friends

I walked back to the Plaza del Armas to get the metro to Quinta Normal where the Museum of Memory and Human Rights is (La Memoria y Los Derechos Humanos).  

http://www.museodelamemoria.cl 

My visit here was one of the most important, emotionally draining, educational and meaningful stops of my travels.  I cannot say enough about the 4+ hours I spent here other than, if you are even in Santiago this is a must stop.  Guided tours (in English) are available at 11 a.m.,12 p.m., 3 p.m. and 4 p.m.

The museum is less than a year old, and highly modern with many large interactive screens.   

This building is to some Chilean’s (not all Chilean’s think that Pinochet was so bad and NO official from his regime has ever apologized or admitted wrong doing for the killings that were committed) what Holocaust museums are to the Jewish people.  It is a place created so that people will never forget and hope that these human rights violations never occur again.  Unfortunately, we all know that these terrible things continue to happen around the world every day.  

There is no entrance fee and no photos can be taken inside.

The introduction of the brochure says:  The Museum of Memory and Human Rights is an invitation to reflect upon the violations to the life and dignity of Chileans committed between September 11, 1973 and March 10 1990 in order that such events will never happen again and with the intention to establish a permanent respect for human rights.

In the entrance hall there is a world map that shows other countries that have had or continue to have events similar to the the human rights violations that occurred in Chile.  There are photos from 30 of these countries with information about the human rights commissions that have been conducted and what the results were.

I heard a girl explaining things to a man in English.  I asked her if she was giving a tour or was there one available.   She told me there would be an English tour at 3:00 and it was 2:45 so I was very happy.   Part of my time in the museum before meeting the guide was spent watching an incredible documentary shot by Jorge Vargas, a journalist on the day of the coup.    

I spent the next 2 1/2 hours with this fabulous tour guide (whose name I cannot remember) and two other people, Ivan and Yuka.  Ivan was born in Peru but is from a Japanese family and Yuka was born in Japan.  Ivan works for the Japanese government and they have been living in Santiago for two years.  They will return to Japan in a few weeks stay for a few months and then move to Miami.  

It is very hard to explain what I saw and learned on the tour it was a bit overwhelming.   The building has 4 floors of exhibits.  One of the most impressive things was the photo wall.  There are framed photos on one wall that spans three of the four floors of people who disappeared, died or were never found.  For me one of the worst parts of this atrocity is the people who were never found.  On the second floor, where I was introduced to this wall, there are lights that represent candles for the people.  (I told the tour guide that it reminded me of the holocaust museum and she told me that her boss had visited the holocaust museum as well as other museum of this nature to get ideas.)  The eerie part of this photo exhibit is the frames with the white paper, empty space, our tour guide said, either for those that never were found or as a reminder that it should never happen again.

The museum has collected thousands of testimonies from people who either were tortured, saw people taken to places of torture or were a relative of someone that went missing.  One of the interactive exhibits enables people to add their loved ones.  I don’t remember the number of torture houses or other places used as detention centers that were discovered but it’s mind boggling.  The tour guide said as of today about 28,000 people can be accounted for that were killed or missing.

  

Part of the problem when they started to ask for testimonies was that people were afraid to talk about it.  The number of people who went missing or were never found has changed over the years.  Originally there was a 10 year period in which they were accepting testimonies but they have found that there are so many more that they have now extended the time in which people can come forward with information.  

The tour guide had told me that the tour would take about 2 hours.  Afterwards I understood why.  We all asked so many questions and she was very capable of answering them.  She was very well trained and informed.  She told us that the museum was built mostly due to the last Chilean President, who herself had been tortured.  The current President is not so in favor of the museum and has stopped the second phase of building which was to be the ministry of education.  She also told us that the current government has reduced the number of hours that history is taught in the schools.  

Well you can only imagine how emotionally drained I was after spending over four hours here and seeing this incredible documentation of history.  The tour guide said that really the tour is to give you an overall view of what you can visit yourself after.  Unfortunately, it was 5:30 and the museum closed at 6:00.  I had already spent 1 1/2 hours before my time with her so I was able to see many things but I can see that it takes a few visits to really get the entire picture.

Well, I said goodbye to my tour friends and took the metro back to my neighborhood.  I needed to go to the apartment sit down and think about what I’d just experienced.

Because I’d had a large lunch I wasn’t really hungry but thought I’d go have dessert before packing and getting ready for my Patagonia experience.

After taking a shower and relaxing a bit, around 8:00 I went to a nice little restaurant just a block away for a piece of cake and tea.

Back for packing and to sleep.