Since I don´t really know if diario is indeed diary, that´s how I am loosely translating it as a double entendre. Firstly, in memory of those who disappeared in 1976 and its anniversary. Secondly to write about my special day.
This morning I realized that I was running out of cotton swabs and tic tacs, so I decided I´d better go home. I´m sure I´ll be thinking about the meaning of this lengthly adventure as I continue to walk the streets of B.A. and get to know the city better.
Today has been a truly adventuresome day. It started by a new bus trip to the Centro Cultural Borges, which is a gallery in downtown B.A. on the the second floor of an extremely elegant mall. The entire second floor in dedicated to this gallery. It has four seperate spacious rooms with four different artists well represented in eacch. The one I went to see is Rene Burri, a photographer fro Zurich, who has made it a point to photograph symbols of war since the 1950´s without showing any human atrocities. But wherever there have been serious military incurgents, whether domestic or international, he has participated as other photo journalists have, ecvept he photographs the pliticians, the events that lead to killings and the physical aftermath (not bodies). As many photos as I´ve taken, they haven´t made me a connoiseur of good photos, but his are poignant. Part of his show also included phtos of politicians, moveir stars, and symbolic social commentaries of as far back as the 1950´s.
For lunch, I ordered what I thought would be salmon salad. It was, except it was smoked with a dab of cream cheese on the side. How nice! An inadvertent reminder of how good things can be. Maybe this will give my daughter Mindy a clue. I´ve saved her lot of money all these weeks by staying away. Usually she visits me with a care package from Russ and Daughters full of my salt fix. (I hope she still reads this blog, for it´s so embarrassing to keep asking her.)
Then I went to Plaza de Mayo thinking that that´s where the HumanRights March was to begin. Fortunately I was wrong. That´s where it ended, so I wound up in the middle of the crowd where the speakers were and where the mile-long curtain of photographs of the Disappeared was being unfolded and rolled up again. It took all I had not to burst into tears. The photos were of people of all ages. The hundreds of people that were holding this long drape were certainly relatives and , of course, several kept pointing tearfully at a picture of someone they knew that passed.
Since I wanted to walk the kilometer, I walked toward the back of the parade all the while taking pictures of all the political parties that participated. I think I walked with Communist Party of several provinces, the Socialist Party, the Party of the Sur South) and certainly with PSOL (Partido Solidario). I´m not sure which I´d belong to if I were Argentinian, but that last one sounded like what I was really doing, being a party to solidarity. When we reached Plaza de Mayo, I noticed a woman in our group with two flags. I asked her if I could haveone. She said quizzically,”if you want.” I felt immensely grateful.
I found the open entrance to the subway after a while. It was free today.
