24 Marzo

Today I had a chilling experience—I attended a commemoration march in downtown Buenos Aires for the ‘disappeared’ people from the 1976 military coup. Chilling, because I looked at the posters that people were carrying of the disappeared and the women on them wore their hair as I did at the time and were born around the same time as I was and I knew that, since at that age I too would have raised my voice against the politics of the time, that I too would have been one of the disappeared. I remember the events, being in college, but I haven't given Argentina much thought until it appeared on the horizon of places I might go to volunteer. To see that the children of some of the pregnant women who were captured and cast aside after giving birth were still missing and the relatives of the handsome men crying as they marched…I’ve never seen anything like this before. I know we had our protests. I know that violence ensued. But 30,000 or 60,000—the numbers vary depending upon who is doing the telling—as one of my new friends said to me as he looked at my pictures—we lost a whole generation of artists and intellectuals. I was going to try to write more but instead I've pared down my pictures. They aren't really repetitive—there was that much blue and white and that much red. Look closely and you'll see the faces of the disappeared. Yes, it was also an opportunity for groups to promote their political agenda, but always there was a line of people carrying photos. Natalie and I wended our way through the crowds, watching each other's back, feeling free to take pictures because we were just two of many. You can see that people with hand drawn signs wanted to be photographed—they wanted their message to carry. Last night Natalie attended a commemoration in the neighborhood where she volunteers for another project where the highest concentration of people were taken. She works with children there who thought that this was an opportunity to carry a flag, or be at one end of a banner. I know that my reaction is strongly related to my physical reaction to the faces, people who could have come from my yearbook, people who would have been my friends. There were activities planned all day long…it has only been a day of commemoration since 2002 and a National Holiday since 2006. But I'm glad that we chose to be part of this rag tag march that stopped and started, seemingly without any more direction than reach the Plaza for the next thing. I don't think I'm that old. That means that this horrible time was not so very long ago. Click on the album cover and thanks for looking. Today, I was the furthest from home I've ever been.

24/03/2010 Album

Plaza de Mayo y Avienda de Mayo 24/3/10